Public Relations

Asgent Releases the World's First Next Generation IP Telephony System for Practical Uses

- Ensures High Quality Voice and Streaming Video With Security -

July 30, 2003
Asgent,Inc.

Asgent, Inc. (President & CEO: Takahiro (Shuji) Sugimoto, Located at Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo), a pioneer of Network Security Solutions, developed jointly with Applico Security, Inc. (President: Arun Kant, Located in U.S.A), "Applico SIP RTC Switch ASA3800", the World's first practical Next Generation IP telephony system.

Applico SIP RTC Switch ASA3800" is the World' first RTC (Real Time Communication) switch that supports SIP and puts Next Generation IP telephony into practical use. Asgent, Inc. starts selling the product in Asia Pacific including Japan from the end of August.

Background

Voice-over IP (VoIP), the technology transferring the information like voice in a packet via Internet is widely watched today. VoIP is getting more attention rapidly and the VoIP market in Japan is said to be developing from the 3.2 billion in 2003 to 720 billion yen in 2007. (by IDC Japan, April, 2003)

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is referred to be the third killer protocol following SMTP (mail) and HTTP (Web), and currently getting a lot of attention along with IP phone activation.

MicroSoft is advocating RTC as a next platform in communications among companies. This means that SIP has immense possibilities and it will definitely become a defact standard in the future. RTC uses SIP as a core technology and it intends to integrate and provide instant message, voice , streaming video and so on.

Windows Messenger installed on WindowsXP, whose licenses were shipped over 46 million (November, 2002), also adopts SIP by default. Moreover, MicroSoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, a server application available as an add-on for Windows Server 2003, is also SIP-based.

When considering all these matters, SIP is expected to make a defact standard of the Internet Protocol.

In contrast, the current VoIP network including IP phones has issues and limitations as follows.

• Issues of SIP connection
  • High cost for both introduction and operation
  • IP Phone is used only for VoIP (voice)
  • No interoperability
    • No connectivity among clients and servers with different vendors
    • No compatibility with the existing devices like IP-PBX


• Issues of Voice and Video Quality
  • Delay Occurrences
  • Jitter*¹ can not be corrected
  • No communication is made between the different codecs*²
  • Quality may be degraded on the Internet with a large number of hops


• Security issues
  • No control on the port 5060
  • No dynamic NAT
  • No support for encryption such as Voice VPN, PPTP and TLS

By overcoming the issues and limitations above and RTC prevailing into the areas of education, healthcare and entertainment along with communications, the RTC market is expected to grow and it will exceed the VoIP market to reach several trillions.

Under these circumstances, Asgent, Inc. releases "Applico SIP RTC Switch ASA3800". This product is an appliance integrating SIP feature, voice/video quality enhancing feature and security feature. This is the world's first practical next generation IP phone, which highly solves the issues of "SIP, quality and security" that reside in the traditional individual device and its combinations. It complies with RFC and also has connectivity and compatibility with the SIP-based servers, clients, IP-PBX and firewalls. Naturally it's possible to configure communication infrastructures most economically making use of current business investment. It also enables ASA3800 itself to configure the new communication infrastructure and improve the throughput with cascade connection if necessary.

Since the product installs dynamic QoS already patented and being applied for a patent and supports all types of Codecs, it will be possible to transfer a high quality voice and moving image as smooth as a TV screen, even on the Internet with a large number of hops, delays and timeouts.

In terms of security, the product completely controls the 5060 port, the default port for SIP, and implements dynamic NAT with "n to n", which the existing firewalls could not support. In addition, since it supports VPN, PPTP and TLS, the establishment of secure communication will be ensured. Furthermore, ASA3800 has redundant feature for chassis as well as the redundant power supplies and cards.

This product has been jointly developed by the two founders of Applico Security, Asgent's subsidiary in U.S.A, Arun Kant (former engineer for router development at Cisco) and Tsong-Ho Wu (former SONET main designer) and Asgent, Inc. Its Beta version has been introduced to and actually operating at carrier companies such as Singapore Telecom, Indonesia Telecom and China Unicom Limited, ISP such as StarHub Pte Ltd and Pasific Internet, multinational companies such as Du Pont, International Bearing, Inc and Neptune Orient Lines, since January in 2003. With high reputation acquired in this half-year testing period, the product will become available in the end of August. Asgent will launch the distribution of ASA3800 in Asia Pacific market including Japan directed at carrier companies, ISP and large-scale enterprises.

Applico SIP RTC Switch ASA3800

Sales starts from: August 2003

Sales Price: 9.8 million yen-

Advantages

• Minimize the initial investment for interoperability (RFC complied) of Applico switch with the existing products.
  • Interconnectivity with other components such as IP-PBX, PSTN Gateway, SIP server, SIP client.
  • Support all SIP clients complied with RFC.
  • Interconnectivity via TINY SIP with H.323, MGCP and MeGaCo/H.248


• High Quality Voice and Video
  • Support multiple Codecs (G711, G723, G723.1 and G729)
  • Application such as Voice, Video, Instant message, Application sharing
  • Multi Video Conference Feature (up to 8 persons)
  • Compatibility with MicroSoft Messengers
  • Dynamic QoS feature


• Ensures Secure communications
  • Dynamic control of Port 5060
  • Encryption features (TLS, PPTP, VPN)
  • Redundant power supplies and interfaces
  • Support for the redundant chassises


• Others
  • Support for dynamic NAT
  • Support for IPv6
  • Cascade connection (up to 8 machines)

Specification

Size:90(H) x 483(W) x 522(D)mm, 4U, 19 inch rack mountable Interface Slot x4

SIP user: Up to 8,000 users (64,000 users at maximum using cascade connection)

Session number: 8,000 simultaneous sessions (64,000 sessions at maximum using cascade connection)

*¹Gitter:
Data spread of the transferring rate of the information or delay time.

*²Codec:
Electronic circuit converting analog data like voices or images into digital code or the other way around. When transferring a picture image from a computer to another via digital line, codec transfers the image converting it into a digital code. The compression rate depends on the specification of each codec.