Buffalo, NY July 27, 1998 -- VOCAL Technologies, Ltd. today announced that it has signed an OEM license agreement with Advanced Computer Communications (ACC) of Santa Barbara, CA. Under the terms of the agreement, VOCAL will assist ACC in extending the functionality range of ACC's award winning Tigris remote access concentrator line to include voice- and fax-over-IP functionality. These enhancements will enable service providers using Tigris to offload traffic and relieve congestion on their voice networks as well as deliver costs savings to their customers.

The Tigris Integrated Access family provides both dial-in and dedicated access, as well as high-performance routing from a single platform, allowing carriers and ISPs to meet the diverse access requirements of customers while consolidating their own access lines, equipment and network management. Extensive support for Quality of Service and Virtual Private Networking (VPN) makes Tigris well-suited for carriers and ISPs offering wholesale Internet access and corporate outsourcing.

Tigris utilizes high-density DSP-based "soft modem" technology to provide up to 192 calls per interface card, and up to 1,344 calls per chassis. ACC's exclusive Call-by-Call technology assigns DSP resources intelligently and "on-the-fly" to support a wide variety of services, including V.90 modem, ISDN, and GSM mobile. Call attributes, such as connect speed, line quality, and compression, are assigned on a per-call basis, eliminating the need for service providers to dedicate ports to specific service profiles. This flexible architecture makes the Tigris solution the most cost-effective on the market today for providers and public carriers offering differentiated access services.

With VOCAL's new software package, Tigris's "on-the-fly" capabilities are now being extended to support Voice-over-IP and Fax-over-IP calls. VOCAL's Fax-over-IP library, dubbed VoIPfax, is a software solution for sending real-time fax messages over public or private IP networks, including the Internet. VoIPfax is fully compliant with the ITU's emerging Recommendation T.38, the international standard for messages and data exchanged between facsimile gateways connected via an IP network. VoIPfax supports the full range of Group 3 modulations, including V.21, V.27ter, V.29, V.17 (up to 14,400 bps trellis coded modulation), and V.34fax (up to 33,600 bps), as well as both the TCP/IP and UDP/IP modes of data transmission called out in Recommendation T.38. VoIPfax also gives customers a range of performance options by allowing them to select the type and amount of redundant information for UDP/IP services.

VoIPfax complements VOCAL's other IP-centric products, including the company's H.323 multimedia software stack, Voice-over-IP solution, and H.323/H.324 gateway. The fax library includes key routines for voice/fax distinction. When combined with VOCAL's Voice-over-IP software, VoIPfax enables customers to build a seamless voice/facsimile relay operation from call startup to disconnect. VoIPfax is also compatible with VOCAL's Group 3 facsimile store-and-forward modules as well as traditional facsimile data modem and computer telephony libraries. The combination gives next-generation access devices like Tigris the ability to handle voice, video, data, and fax transmissions over the switched telephone network as well as public and private IP networks.

All VOCAL software is designed to operate on today's high performance DSP chips, making multi-line systems and enterprise solutions low-cost and technically superior.

ACC, a Newbridge affiliate, is a leading manufacturer of integrated remote access and internetworking products that provide cost-effective solutions for service providers and corporate enterprise networks. ACC leads the industry in the development of Virtual Private Network technologies and solutions designed to address emerging applications for both public and private networks. ACC's products are sold worldwide directly and through strategic channel partners.

VOCAL Technologies, Ltd. is a technology house providing OEM accounts with custom software development and hardware/software integration expertise. The company has hundreds of man-years experience in the telephony and computer telephony industry and is a worldwide leader in DSP software solutions. VOCAL offers a wide range of fax, voice, video, data, and telephony functions for analog and digital communications networks. VOCAL is a key technology partner with Analog Devices and offers a full range of communications-oriented software modules which run on Analog Devices' DSP product line as well as on DSPs from other IC vendors.