News Release

GRIC Announces OSP Interoperability with Cisco Voice over IP Gateways

First use of the Open Settlement Protocol (OSP) for
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Apr 13, 1999

First use of the Open Settlement Protocol (OSP) for interoperability



Voice On The Net (Booth 219), Las Vegas, April 13, 1999 -- GRIC Communications, Inc., today announced the availability of Open Settlement Protocol (OSP) interoperability with Cisco gateways. OSP allows routing and authorization between multiple service carriers.

GRIC's first implementation of OSP will inter-work with Cisco System's AS5300 and AccessPath VS3 Voice Gateways, and will be available in the summer of 1999. GRIC and Cisco have worked within the ETSI-TIPHON standards organization to develop and promote the standardization of a communications protocol between H.323 equipment platforms and back-end services, such as authorization, route determination, and call detail record (CDR) collection and settlement. Cisco and GRIC are among the co-sponsors of the work-item to define the specifications of OSP version 2.

"OSP compliance is critical for the continued expansion of VoIP services and applications," said John Jacquay, GRIC's president and chief operating officer. "OSP will help open the door for emerging services such as e-commerce and customer care."

With the implementation of the OSP feature, inter-domain call detail records are forwarded to the GRIC settlement system, processed, and then transmitted as settled records to billing system platforms. Systems integration effort is required to provide the interface between the GRIC servers and the billing system. Intra-domain records generated by the Cisco equipment are accessed through any Radius based accounting and billing system.

"Cisco is very committed to working with the standards body to define protocols that enable Cisco's Open Packet Telephony framework," said Alistair Woodman, Group Manager of Packet Voice Technologies at Cisco Systems. "We are encouraged to see multi-vendor implementations of ETSI-TIPHON OSP, and will continue to work with standards-based solution providers such as GRIC to deliver the benefits of OSP to the marketplace."

About GRIC

\GRIC Communications, Inc., provides the technology that brings intelligence to the Internet through GRIC CSP (Convergent Services Platform), a common provisioning platform giving users multiple services through a single account and one bill. GRIC offers integrated IP-based services (roaming, phone, fax, remote access/VPN) to more than 450 ISPs and telcos in the GRIC Alliance Network. Covering 140+ countries, Alliance members have an aggregate addressable subscriber base of 30 million dial-up users and an estimated 40 million corporate users, making GRIC the largest provider - as well as originator -- of IP-based services.

The GRIC Alliance provides worldwide access and termination for roaming, voice and fax services across 4,000 dial access servers, 71 VoIP servers, 40 store and forward fax hubs, and five regional QoS network hubs.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet.

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GRIC, GRIC CSP, GRIC Alliance Network, "The technology that brings intelligence to the Internet" and the GRIC logo are trademarks of GRIC Communications, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

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