Appia Communications Offers ICE Server and Client

Traverse City, Michigan – April 22,
2008 - Appia Communications today announced the release of a server and
client to meet the growing need for Interactive Connectivity
Establishment (ICE). The offering meets all of the most recent Internet
Engineering Task Force standards, including ice-19, rfc3489bis-15, and
turn-07.

“As the use of the Session
Initiation Protocol, or SIP, has spread, the problem of Network Address
Translator (NAT) traversal has become acute. ICE solves this problem,”
said Victor von Schlegell, Appia’s president.

ICE uses both Session Traversal
Utilities for NAT (STUN) and Traversal Using Relays around NAT (TURN)
servers to find a connection for multimedia sessions under the
offer/answer model. ICE can be utilized by any protocol using this
model, including SIP.

The need for the ICE server and
client arose from Appia’s own experience. “In 2007, we developed an
encrypted SIP phone application for one of our customers,” said von
Schlegell. “A peer-to-peer connection was necessary to deploy it, as
only the receiving phone can decrypt the voice packets.

“The phone worked flawlessly when
both parties were using the public internet, or when only one party was
behind NAT. But did not work if both parties were behind NATs,”
continued von Schlegell. “Servers didn’t recognize the encrypted
packets, so the packets were dropped. The ICE server and client were
engineered to enable phones to work around NATs.”

A peer-to-peer connection is
desirable for voice applications because it has less delay and fewer
dropped packets than a connection through servers. ICE finds the best
peer-to-peer connection in milliseconds, even before the phone rings on
other end.

The ICE server and client are available for purchase on a stand-alone basis or as a service.

About Appia Communications

Appia Communications is a leading
provider of managed IT and telecommunications services, whose mission
is to enable small and mid-sized companies and organizations to realize
the benefits of Internet Protocol (IP) technology. Appia’s managed
solutions help customers reduce costs, enhance employee productivity,
improve customer care, and compete more effectively against much larger
enterprises.

Headquartered in Traverse City,
Michigan, Appia has operations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Boston, and other markets in North
America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.appiaservices.com, or call 877-277-4297.

Media Contact:

Keli Minick
Marketing Communications Manager
231.929.0970 (v)

kminick(at)appiaservices.com