Appia Communications Offers ICE Server and Client

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 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.