VoIP Termiantion Service.

ASTELNET announced the availability of its termination service for carrier customers that provide VoIP services to businesses and consumers. ASTELNET VoIP Termination allows customers to terminate long-distance voice calls to domestic locations using ASTELNET's VoIP network and SoftSwitch technology.

ASTELNET VoIP Termination enables broadband telephony providers and cable companies to hand over their VoIP traffic directly to ASTELNET for termination to the PSTN. With an IP connection to the ASTELNET IP network, customers' voice traffic will be routed across ASTELNET's class of service-enabled network at the highest level of priority. The traffic passes through an ASTELNET SoftSwitch gateway and is carried across the ASTELNET IP network to an ASTELNET SoftSwitch gateway nearest the final destination of the call. The traffic is then converted by an ASTELNET SoftSwitch to a format accepted by the terminating local service provider.

ASTELNET VoIP Termination Service has the following features:

• SIP, H323, IAX signaling;
• Session border controller for network and application level security;
• ASTELNET IP network transit via ASTELNET dedicated Internet access, Fast Ethernet/Gigabit Ethernet;
• Service level agreements for interconnection transport;
• 24/7 network management and proactive network monitoring;
• Interconnection and usage reporting.

ASTELNET has one of the industry's up-today deployments of Class 4-5 SoftSwitches, which provides an IP based switching platform to support both traditional circuit-switched voice traffic and packet-based VoIP traffic. Since the deployment of the SoftSwitch technology across the ASTELNET IP network in 1999, ASTELNET has utilized the technology to support all of its customers' long-distance voice traffic and currently supports more than 100 million minutes each month.