ATLANTA, GA. September 2, 1998.
Industry leaders 3Com Corporation, Cisco, GRIC Communications, iPass, and TransNexus have teamed up to promote inter-domain authentication, authorization and accounting standards for IP telephony through the Open Settlement Protocol (OSP).
OSP allows a clearinghouse to provide call routing and authorization between carriers. In addition, OSP provides usage reporting through call detail records. Without OSP, there is no open standard solution to perform these functions.
In addition to the overwhelming support of these industry leaders, OSP has been defined within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's (ETSI) project TIPHON (Telecommunications and Internet Protocol Harmonization Over Networks), chartered to establish global standards for Internet telephony. ``The industry realizes that ubiquitous interconnection will drive market demand, adoption and growth of IP telephony products and services, and OSP is a critical step in realizing the full potential of IP telephony,'' says Stephen Thomas, ETSI's editor for this standard and chair of the Voice over IP Forum.
Major benefits of OSP include:
Confidentiality of all information through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption
Secure, mutual authentication of communicating parties
Non-repudiation of all communications through digital signature technology
Supports operation through existing firewalls
Flexible and feature rich information exchange via eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
About 3Com
3Com Corporation enables individuals and organizations worldwide to stay more connected by communicating and sharing information and resources anytime, anywhere. As one of the world's preeminent suppliers of data, voice and video communications technology, 3Com has delivered networking solutions to more than 100 million customers worldwide. The company provides large enterprise, small and medium enterprise, carriers and network service providers, and consumers with comprehensive, innovative information access products and system solutions for building intelligent, reliable and high performance local and wide area networks. For further information, visit 3Com's World Wide Web site at http://www.3com.com or the press site at www.3com.com/pressbox.
About Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc.
Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at http://www.cisco.com.
About GRIC
GRIC Communications, Inc. is the leader in providing an integrated, global IP infrastructure for secure settlement, network management, roaming, fax and telephony services at competitive rates. The more than 350 worldwide telcos, PTTs and ISPs in the GRIC alliance deploy GRIC's IP infrastructure to integrate traditional services with Internet telecommunications. Complex tasks performed on this platform include authentication, flexible routing, settlement, provisioning, billing, customer service and self-service automation. Privately held, GRIC Communications has offices in the U.S., Asia and Europe. For additional information, visit GRIC's Web site at http://www.gric.com.
About iPass Inc.
iPass, the ``Access Anywhere'' company, is the premier settlement and clearinghouse service that unlocks the power of the Internet backbone for low-cost global communications. Through an alliance with the leading network providers around the world, iPass enables ISPs to provide easy and secure Internet access with a local call though more than 2,700 access points in 150 countries. iPass is the proven standard for global Internet roaming and corporate remote access/VPN solutions and the company's clearinghouse platform is used to enable IP telephony, IP fax and other emerging Internet-based services. iPass is headquartered in Mountain View, CA and additional information can be found at http://www.ipass.com.
About TransNexus
TransNexus provides the first real-time brokering of interconnectivity through an open, non-exclusive clearinghouse service. This service targets IP telephony gateway operators seeking and/or providing termination services for IP voice and fax communications. TransNexus authenticates, authorizes and records the calling traffic between unaffiliated gateways, and provides reconciliation and settlement of all inter-gateway termination fees. For additional information visit http://www.transnexus.com.
Contact:
Manning, Selvage & Lee, Atlanta
Debbie Sorokin
+1 404-875-1444
dsorokin@mslpr.com
or
TransNexus, Atlanta
Stephen Thomas
+1 404-872-4745
stephen.thomas@transnexus.com