FRISCO, Texas -- Newport Networks is announcing Release 2.0 software for its 1460 Session Border Controller adding industry-first geographic service resilience, link aggregation (802.3-2002) capabilities, and a series of enhancements that deliver carrier-class reliability, bandwidth utilization and profitability.

"VoIP has reached a critical mass where customers demand both high quality and savings, and Service Providers are looking for session border controllers to ensure PSTN-caliber performance," says Newport Networks' Chairman Terry Matthews. "The 1460 has been architected as a true carrier-class platform from the start. Newport has timed the first major enhancement to set higher standards for the US VoIP Market."

New in Release 2.0

First generation session border controllers addressed basic security issues. They were developed to enable completion of voice and multimedia calls behind firewalls and Network Address Translation (NAT) devices but not architected to meet the performance, resilience and scalability requirements of mature VoIP deployments. The Newport Networks 1460 delivers the industry's most advanced, high-end solution offering critical features necessary for a carrier-class platform. Release 2.0 provides:

Geographic Service Resilience: With this latest release, the 1460 session border controller becomes the first to deliver true geographic resilience, safeguarding against both node and network failure. Two1460s in different locations can automatically assume traffic from one another in the event of disaster scenarios, router failure or extended power outages. Automatic switchover of traffic is performed, avoiding service disruption and providing disaster recovery capabilities on a par with the PSTN.

Link Aggregation to Bolster Reliability: The 1460 is the first session border control architecture to include Link Aggregation (802.3-2002) functionality, commonly deployed in routers. This optimizes the flow of traffic across 8 physical links, allowing traffic to continue to flow even in the event of a link failure, vastly improving service reliability.

Regulatory Compliance: The 1460 solution complies with CALEA and Emergency 911 mandates. In keeping with requirements, Lawful Intercept is performed `without the end-users' knowledge and monitored details are delivered in real-time over secure interfaces to the law enforcement agency. These features are added in such a way that call processing performance is not impacted.

VLAN Support for Premium Services: The 1460 architecture allows service providers to establish SIP-based Virtual LANs (VLANs) between their network core and customer sites with extensive traffic policing capabilities, enabling guaranteed performance and optimal bandwidth utilization. VLAN capabilities can also be applied on the trunking side to ensure optimum physical interface utilization while policing at the VLAN level enforces peering agreements

"Policing" Profitability: The Release 2.0 software includes expanded traffic policing capabilities for regulating bandwidth across multiple customer connections. Precise media policing on a per connection basis gives providers the granular control of bandwidth utilization needed to accurately design and consistently meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Meanwhile signaling policing limits the effects of signaling Denial of Service attacks on the core network.

Session Admission Control (SAC): Allows bandwidth and session type (e.g. voice, instant messaging, and video) limits to be set for corporate groups and individual users. Additionally, "Anti-tromboning" (or Media Release), for use among end-users behind a main corporate IP address, allows internal VoIP calls to take place within the corporate network with only the signaling traffic sent to the session border controller. This minimizes congestion in the public access network.

Newport Networks Ltd.