Open Interoperability Achieved

February 06, 2008, Plano, TX - GENBAND Inc., a market-leading developer of next-generation media gateways and application solutions, and ZTE, a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, today announced that they successfully completed interoperability testing between the GENBAND M6 Communication Applications ServerTM and ZTE’s IMS solution, ZIMSTM.

The ZIMSTM is a complete, end-to-end IMS solution supporting multi-network convergence with an open architecture.  It enables the convergence of both fixed and mobile networks, ensuring service providers can continue to offer differentiated services. In July 2007, ZTE announced its IMS product portfolios support the MultiService Forum (MSF) R3 "NGN Guidelines" and comply with the MSF Release 3 Architecture.

“ZTE is committed to helping operators provide the services that their end-users demand,” said Mr. Ye Zheng, general manager of IMS product line for ZTE Corporation.  “ZTE has developed an open ecosystem based on standard interfaces around its truly open IMS application platform, encouraging best-in-class deployments.  Applications are always major drivers of network evolution and a major source of revenue for operators, and we believe that the broad feature offerings of GENBAND’s M6 platform provide critical application solutions needed to meet the needs of service providers.” 

GENBAND’s M6 Communication Application Server cost-effectively enables advanced voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia applications for business and residential users. Built for today’s legacy, mobile, and IP networks, as well as future IMS network deployments, the M6 platform is a carrier-grade, scalable applications server that delivers revenue-generating multimedia services out of the box.

“It’s clear that ZTE’s IMS platform is designed with fully open interfaces, flexible configuration, and standard compliance in mind, creating an open service creation platform that acts as the catalyst for the delivery of innovative services,” said Keith Landau, executive vice president of research and development at GENBAND.  “Since both platforms are built using the IMS architecture, we found that the combined products create a powerful “plug and play” environment for service providers.”

GENBAND and ZTE began interoperability testing last fall.  During the extensive testing, GENBAND and ZTE verified general interoperability, application feature sets, and essential IP Centrex services.  Both companies were satisfied with the successful outcome of the testing.

About ZTE
ZTE is a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions.  The ZTE product range is the most complete in the world – covering virtually every sector of the wireline, wireless, service and terminals markets.  The company delivers innovative, custom-made products and services to customers in more than 120 countries, helping them to achieve continued revenue growth and to shape the future of the world’s communications.  ZTE commits around 10% of annual turnover to research and development and takes a leading role in a wide range of international bodies developing emerging telecoms standards.  It is the fastest growing telecoms equipment company in the world, and is China’s only listed telecoms manufacturer, with shares publicly traded on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges.  ZTE was the only Chinese IT and telecoms manufacturer listed in BusinessWeek 2005’s Information Technology 100 and was included in its 2006 ranking of China’s Top 20 brands. For more information, please visit www.zte.com.cn.

About GENBAND
GENBAND is a leading supplier of next-generation media gateway and application solutions. These high-performance gateway and application platforms enable fixed and mobile network service providers to rapidly deploy new multimedia services.  Headquartered in Plano, Texas, GENBAND has research and development facilities in Texas, China, and India.  Additional information is available at www.genband.com.

Contacts:

Noah Sessions
GENBAND Inc.
+1.972.265.3664 (office)
noah.sessions@genband.com

Lora Friedrichsen
Ketchum for GENBAND
+1.214.259.3444 (office)
lora.friedrichsen@ketchum.com