Fremont, CA, February 17, 2004 - net.com (NYSE: NWK), today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has approved net.com's forward error correction (FEC) patent, number 6,675,340, to improve reliability of data packets transmitted over packetized networks, such as voice packets transmitted over an Internet protocol (IP) network.

Due to the time sensitive nature of voice traffic, the re-transmission of damaged, delayed or lost packets cannot be used as a technique for correcting packet transmission errors. The patented FEC function allows net.com to offer improved voice reliability and with minimal delay or incremental bandwidth on its SHOUTIP platform.

Especially for military and government customers who carry secure telephone unit (STU) and future narrowband digital terminal (FNBDT) calls over IP networks, FEC offers exact transmission of encrypted voice data with minimal bandwidth overhead and packet delay. This is critical for the effective use of STU and FNBDT technology in IP networks.

"The 'easy' alternative to ensure exact replication of packets is to transmit them two or three times, but this is an inefficient use of bandwidth," said Steve Shaw, director of industry relations for net.com. "Many secure calls are carried over satellite links, where bandwidth is at a premium and packet loss may occur. We patented FEC technology to avoid the resending of packets and to improve error correction in VoIP systems. FEC allows for improved transmissions without introducing large latencies and without significantly increasing the required bandwidth."

net.com's SHOUTIP platform contains unique features for military and government deployments including native STU/FNBDT support in the secure voice relay functionality which offers a 93% bandwidth efficiency versus some competitive solutions. Additionally, SHOUTIP now includes basic routing functions and a new basic rate interface (BRI) for direct connection to satellite uplinks These two features make SHOUTIP an ideal remote access device for multiplexing VoIP traffic with other data traffic and for connecting directly to the satellite uplink, thus removing the need to have an additional router installed at the remote location.