Internet Phone Quality Drops Significantly And Steadily Over Last 18 Months

-- One Out Of Five Calls Found To Be Unacceptable According To Data From Brix Networks’ TestYourVoIP.com Voice Quality Testing Portal -- TestYourVoIP.com Also Now Available As Google Desktop Gadget

Monday, July 24, 2006, CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Nearly 20 percent of Internet telephone test calls experienced unacceptable call quality over the last 18 months, according to data collected from TestYourVoIP.com, Brix Networks’ free, voice quality testing portal that enables consumers to independently measure the quality of their broadband Internet phone connections.

Brix Networks also announced today that TestYourVoIP.com is now available as a Google Gadget -- an interactive, mini-application users can download (www.TestYourVoIP.com/gadget) to their personalized Google Desktops that displays a “weather map” indicating the Internet’s current ability to support real-time services, such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IP television (IPTV).

With almost one million Internet phone tests conducted by users from around the world since its launch in March 2004, TestYourVoIP.com is a unique and invaluable resource for consumers of cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) services. TestYourVoIP.com arms users with accurate, objective performance information that empowers them to make informed decisions about their own Internet phone quality.

From late 2004 through mid-2006, the test results generated by Test YourVoIP.com showed a consistent decrease in overall voice quality as calculated via a Mean Opinion Score (MOS), a common objective measure of conversational voice quality that rates calls on a scale from one (bad) to five (excellent). Test calls with a MOS of 3.6 or better are typically regarded as having satisfactory quality. The number of test calls throughout this time that achieved a MOS of 3.6 or higher, also known as Acceptable Call Quality (ACQ), was only 81 percent.

“Over the last few years, the global market for consumer VoIP services has grown to nearly 20 million subscribers. These results from TestYourVoIP.com indicate that during this same period Internet call quality has declined,” said Kaynam Hedayat, vice president, engineering, and chief technology officer at Brix. “For long-term sustainability, providers of Internet phone services will need to concentrate on the root causes of call quality degradation, including late packet discards, lost packets, and round-trip voice latency.”

TestYourVoIP.com is powered by the Brix System, Brix Networks’ seamlessly integrated hardware and software solutions that proactively test and monitor IP service and application quality. Visitors to TestYourVoIP.com download a small applet that initiates a test phone call using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call-signaling protocol. Appliance-based Brix Verifiers answer these test calls and measure the quality of the “conversation.” Verifiers are currently installed at test locations in Boston, Helsinki, London, Montreal, San Jose, Sydney, and Vienna.

Network operators use the Brix System to guarantee the successful launch and ongoing, profitable operation of their various IP services, including VoIP, IPTV, and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). A commercial version of TestYourVoIP.com is available that enables operators to proactively assess the quality of a potential subscriber’s Internet connection to support VoIP services and to provide ongoing, self-help customer support.

About Brix Networks

Brix Networks is the leading provider of converged service assurance solutions that allow the world’s largest service providers and enterprises to offer reliable and high-quality experiences in voice, video, data, and mobile services to their customers, partners, and employees. The company brings a proven heritage of IP expertise unique to the service assurance marketplace, and collaborates closely with its customers and partners to assure the delivery of any IP-based service, over any network, to any endpoint. For more information, visit www.brixnet.com, or call 978-367-5600/1-888-BRIXNET.

Contact Information

John H. Ricciardone

Brix Networks

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