Dallas, July 10 – snom technology AG, the leading IP phone manufacturer, announces it has won the Innovation Award 2003 from TMC™ Labs for its snom 200 phone with UPNP. The fourth annual TMC Labs Innovation Award, honors products that demonstrate innovation, unique features, and significantly contribute towards improving communications technology. TMC Lab awards are published and announced on TMC’s website at www.tmc.net and its print publications including Internet Telephony and Communications Solutions Magazine.

TMC Labs has built a solid reputation for providing the most objective and definitive product reviews in the industry. This year, TMC Labs received over 100 entries, from which 12 products were selected as winners in various technology categories. The TMC Labs report states, "We have given snom technology this Innovation Award for the snom200 IP phone because of its unique, open, standards-based, approach with UPNP to allow snom IP phones to operate behind residential routers and NAT firewalls supporting the UPnP standard as cost effective, easy and convenient way to provide connectivity and IP Phone provisioning. UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play a initiative of the UPNP Forum which specializes in creating user friendly and easy ways to interconnecting devices.

snom technology is pleased that TMC has recognized snom and specially the snom200 for its innovative features” said Nicolas Pohland, Executive Director of snom technology AG. “snom has offered the first IP Phone to incorporate STUN with the snom100 and early 2003 with the snom200 launched the first IP phone to incorporate UPnP. Together with the snom’s mass deployment system SMDS and snom’s HTTP based firmware updating system offers ITSPs, ISPs and enterprise the lowest TCO and deployment cost option along with user friendliness and convenience.

snom VoIP phones when used with UPnP enabled routers, will automatically determine its public IP address and auto-configure port forwarding. This lets the snom phones register with a service provider and makes the phone accessible for incoming calls from the public Internet. This new feature of snom’s IP phones combined with the increasing number of UPnP supporting routers brings “Plug and Play” to VoIP service providers and virtually opens residential and small office markets worldwide to VoIP deployment. UPnP is another fundamental step in towards enabling VoIP an as an ubiquitous option to conventional telephony.

“The NAT (network address translation) barrier was the biggest hurdle ISPs and emerging IP telephony carriers had to struggle with when acquiring new customers and now is eliminated for the market where low cost and minimum service requirements were the most critical elements.” Nicolas Pohland Executive Director of snom technology AG

About Universal Plug and Play

Consumer interest in home networking is increasing as PCs, information appliances and the Internet play a larger role in day-to-day activities such as entertainment, communication, education and shopping. snom technology is among more than 330 companies leading the development of UPnP, which will make connecting multiple devices easier by building on existing Internet standards and technologies. UPnP is network-media-independent and encompasses all types of networked and traditional peripheral devices, including PCs, home entertainment systems, new smart appliances, home automation systems, networked peripherals and Web-based services.

The UPnP Forum was formed in October 1999 to help define interconnectivity standards to simplify the networking of intelligent devices. The forum is achieving this goal by defining and publishing UPnP device and service control protocols. Visit www.upnp.com for more information.

About snom technology AG

snom is a recognised technology leader in the area of VoIP phones, with a particular focus on SIP. Founded in 1996 and based in Berlin, the company has constantly pursued a commitment to innovation, open standards and SIP. snom is a customer-oriented company producing state of the art, affordable VoIP phones with a high cost-performance ratio and a range of practical SIP applications for business.

For further information: www.snom.com. To purchase phones in the US please contact snom USA at 972-745-1221 - www.abptech.com.

Europe & ROW:

USA and Americas:

India and SAARC: