Agilent Technologies enhances Voice over IP quality testing with new QA Robot IP Impairment capabilities

PALO ALTO, CA -- July 17, 2000

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today introduces new software for its QA Robot platform that will allow developers and service providers to evaluate the impact of network impairments on delivery of Voice over IP (VoIP) and other multimedia Internet services. QA Robot can be used to emulate an entire IP network, introduce controlled network errors common on the real-world Internet, and evaluate their effect on VoIP service delivery. It can be used in combination with Agilent's Telegra VQT voice quality tester for objective, end-to-end voice quality testing, including detailed analysis of clarity, echo and delay.

The combined QA Robot/Telegra VQT solution meets the needs of developers of multimedia gateways for delivery of IP-based voice, video, fax and other multimedia services, as well as service providers evaluating this equipment or testing network performance in delivery of VoIP services.

The QA Robot system can generate up to 2,000 independently configured IP traffic streams with specific IP destination addresses, allowing developers to intentionally create impairments, including packet delays, packet drops and packet reordering, in order to test their impact on service quality. For example, impairments can be varied to determine the precise error levels that VoIP equipment can tolerate while still providing acceptable quality and meeting service level agreements.

The solution can also be used to estimate the performance of VoIP networks in delivering voice quality under various network conditions, evaluate how well VoIP network elements correct for IP impairments and measure minimum IP network service levels required for acceptable voice quality.

QA Robot's extensive scripting capabilities allow users to create automated test routines that vary multiple impairments over time to simulate a wide variety of Internet conditions. The product also simplifies regression testing, speeding the process of identifying system faults.

In addition, the QA Robot offers a range of other IP test tools, such as routing protocol conformance and stress, TCP, UDP and HTTP traffic generation and analysis.

More information about QA Robot IP impairment software can be found on the Web at www.agilent.com/comms/iptest. Information on Telegra VQT products is available at www.agilent.com/comms/onenetworks.

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is a diversified technology company, resulting from Hewlett-Packard Company's plan to strategically realign itself into two fully independent companies. With approximately 43,000 employees serving customers in more than 120 countries, Agilent Technologies is a global leader in designing and manufacturing test, measurement and monitoring instruments, systems and solutions, and semiconductor and optical components. The company serves markets that include communications, electronics, life sciences and healthcare. In fiscal year 1999, the businesses comprising Agilent, then a subsidiary of HP, had net revenue of more than $8.3 billion.

Information about Agilent Technologies can be found on the Web at www.agilent.com.

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