hp joins Unisphere's UMC Partners Program; addition allows migration from legacy to next-generation billing

BURLINGTON, Mass. (February 28, 2000)—Unisphere Solutions, a leading provider of converged networking solutions and services for internet service providers and carriers, announced today it has formed an alliance with one of the industry's leading usage mediation providers, Hewlett-Packard Company. HP Smart Internet Usage (SIU) will be combined with the Unisphere Management Center's service creation, delivery and assurance tools to give service providers the flexibility to deploy and bill for converged services. The addition of HP SIU with UMC is a key component of Unisphere's strategy to give service providers the solutions they need to build out next generation services.

"For service providers, billing is both mission-critical and extremely complex in today's networks. Because a single end-to-end service offering involves many individual transactions between a number of different devices, billing problems now pose one of the greatest challenges to new service roll-out," said Aref Matin, vice president, network and service management, Unisphere Solutions. "HP gives us a great solution to bring the challenge of billing for new and existing services under control, and is a great addition to our UMC framework."

Unisphere will offer flexible mediation capabilities of HP SIU to customers as an optional powerful metering tool to collect usage information from multi-vendor network elements. The addition of HP SIU, combined with the recently announced integration of TeleKnowledge's billing and customer care technology and the addition of new billing and billing mediation partners, gives Unisphere the capability to support an enhanced service's complete life-cycle - from defining a usage-based tariff model for new services, to data collection, rating, billing and web-based bill presentment and customer care.

"Unisphere's service life cycle approach to service management is an exciting step forward for service providers, and is well complemented by the flexible collection, aggregation and correlation rules found in HP Smart Internet Usage," said Nigel Upton, general manager of HP's Internet Services Infrastructure Operation. "The emergence of integrated-QoS-sensitive services demands the sophisticated management capabilities of our joint solution."

An integral part of Unisphere Solutions' commitment to address the needs of service providers, the UMC Partners Program brings together the industry's leading software providers, in conjunction with Unisphere's internally developed software and services, to offer a comprehensive set of service creation, delivery and assurance tools and services.

"Integrated communications providers are looking for tools that not only deliver, but also extract value from innovative and differentiated services such as IP telephony, application hosting and video conferencing. The key to billing for these value-based services is flexibility. The flexibility and range of capabilities being added to Unisphere's UMC framework promise to redefine how services and content are delivered, enabling providers to move beyond traditional flat-rate arrangements and long-term commitment," said Steve Byars, Principal Analyst for Carrier Infrastructure, Current Analysis.

The UMC system is comprised of both service and network management tools. It is a significant departure from how service providers have historically been able to create and control converged services. While traditional service and network systems have focused on the management of the infrastructure, UMC focuses on the management of services so that service providers can reach service-level convergence and more quickly deliver next-generation integrated voice, video and data services, while still leveraging investments made in existing technology and equipment infrastructures.

about hp's communications industry business unit

HP is powering the communications industry by supplying communications IT infrastructure to every Fortune 500 telecommunications company in the world today. HP and its partners deliver management, network intelligence, billing and customer-care solutions for UNIX and Windows NT(R) system platforms, enabling service providers to migrate from network- to customer-focused business models as the Internet and telephony worlds converge. More information is available on the Web at www.hp.com/united-states/business/nsp.

about Unisphere Solutions, Inc.

Unisphere Solutions, Inc., based in Burlington, Mass., designs, markets and services converged networking solutions to Service Provider customers. Founded in March 1999 by Siemens, the company brings together the know-how of 500 people, concentrating on assets from both Siemens Information and Communication Networks Group and several technology companies it has acquired in the United States to deliver end-to-end networking solutions for converged networks. The Company leverages its relationship as a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens to gain access to a channel of Siemens Information and Communication Networks' 26,000 sales and support people worldwide. Further information on Unisphere Solutions can be found at www.unispheresolutions.com.