Hilversum, The Netherlands –  July 2, 2007 – With the introduction of a new release of UNIVERGE SV7000, NEC extends the flexibility and security offered by this high-end IP communications server.

UNIVERGE SV7000 is NEC’s highly scalable and secure platform that enables enterprises to implement communication strategies that improve efficiency, reduce costs, increase customer responsiveness and generate revenues.  The server, which is marketed in EMEA by NEC Philips Unified Solutions, can be fully distributed across Wide Area Networks and supports a variety of devices and applications for both wired and wireless communication, including Microsoft OCS and NEC’s Virtual PC Center thin client solution.

With the number and sophistication of security threats increasing, information security is a growing concern for most organisations. With Release 22 NEC has equipped the UNIVERGE SV7000 with significant enhancements that minimize risks of incidents that negatively influence business operations:

• To avoid terminal spoofing, terminal authentication is added. This (IEEE 802.1X standard) port-based network access control verifies the physical characteristics of a switched LAN infrastructure and the credentials of attached telephone terminals before authorizing access to SV7000 services.
• Encryption of both voice and signalling of all SIP-based communication between servers and other equipment in a SV7000 solution avoids information leakage and phone tapping. Encryption is based on AES using 128-bit encryption keys.
• Obstruction of management activities via regular communication paths is a serious threat. The SV7000T server has a separate physical LAN port enabling out-of-band management, a secure solution that splits normal voice communication and management traffic.
• The Survivable Remote Media Gateway Controller (SR-MGC) provides uninterrupted IP telephony services to branch offices, ensuring business continues even in the case of failing communication to public networks. This controller now also supports continuous communication for wireless phones (MH250), media converters (MC8), media gateways (MG6) and conference servers (VS-32).
• Call retention functionality further improves the SV7000’s reliability. In case of communication failures in networks or servers the media gateway waits until all existing calls are finalized before it reboots. Another reliability feature of the media gateway is that it can automatically connect an emergency telephone line to be used in case the gateway is not available due to power failure or IP network failure.

In addition to security functionality, the flexibility offered by UNIVERGE SV7000 has been further increased:

• The SIP protocol is recognized as the industry standard for IP Telephony, enabling interoperability of devices and offering customers a wide choice of terminals. With four new Dterm IP (SIP) models added to the existing portfolio, NEC Philips offers a wide range of models and features, and provides superior performance at a competitive price.
• To accommodate for the still frequently used public analogue networks, an analogue media gateway is added, acting as bridge between an IP network and an analogue network. This MG6 gateway enables emerging UNIVERGE SV7000 applications to extend from central corporate location out to branch locations, seamlessly integrating the enterprise across multiple locations. This eliminates the need to add costly voice ports to routers. Together with other SV7000 media gateways (like for Primary Rate ISDN, Basic Rate ISDN and SIP access), the MG6 provides easy and cost-efficient ways to connect traditional circuit switched networks to the IP environment, seamlessly interacting with the survivability functions of SV7000 servers.
• International organizations with offices in different locations across the globe will appreciate the capability of a single SV7000 server to deal with multiple time-zones and support tone settings and user language that can be specified per individual telephone.
• Voice quality of NEC’s Dterm SP30 soft phones has been considerably improved by implementing dynamic jitter control, packet loss concealment and forward error correction. These improvements make soft phones an attractive alternative, offering easy installation, use and effective integration with well known applications.

Finally, with the introduction of Release 22, the SV7000 now also supports NEC’s new third generation wireless LAN solution, UNIVERGE Assured Mobility, adding further flexibility in accommodating a network that meets an organisation’s most stringent communication needs.