Birch Telecom Signs with ACE*COMM for DW Solution

ACE*COMM Corporation, the innovator of Convergent Mediation and provider of Next Generation Network (NGN) Operations Support Systems (OSS), announced that Birch Telecom has signed an agreement with ACE*COMM worth over $1.9 million, for its N*VISION data warehousing solution. Birch will use N*VISION as the foundation for its data management requirements, to process and store data from Lucent and Siemens switches, and process ILEC, NECA-INS and IXC data feeds. Birch Telecom is one of the largest competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) in the Midwest, with more than 181,000 telephone lines in service.

"The Convergent Mediation platform provides us with a single-point of entry for all of our usage records, thereby providing us with the opportunity to better control our revenue stream," said Robert Segat, vice president of Revenue Operations at Birch Telecom. "We selected ACE*COMM's N*VISION product after a thorough evaluation of some of the leading products on the market today. We believe that N*VISION will have the flexibility to support our immediate and future data management needs, and the modular nature of ACE*COMM's architecture should make it easily scalable to support our growth."

"Birch Telecom is aggressively expanding its reach and available services, including local, long-distance and Internet services and equipment," said Gino Picasso, president and COO of ACE*COMM. "Our N*VISION solution provides a flexible and scalable way of managing data to give Birch the edge they need in today's growing and competitive telecommunications environment. We are particularly pleased with Birch's selection of ACE*COMM, because their careful and exhaustive evaluation and subsequent selection validates our ability to meet market expectations with applications developed to satisfy business requirements faced by the most competitive, Next Generation Network Service providers."

ACE*COMM's N*VISION is a high volume, real-time billing, traffic management, and performance analysis infrastructure, delivering an integrated solution that addresses the network operations data requirements of a telecommunications service provider. N*VISION is well-suited for any carrier operating a hybrid voice and data network that needs a robust scalable and flexible data management solution that will rapidly adapt to change. Using ACE*COMM developed software with standard database management tools and graphical user interfaces, N*VISION provides a central platform for the accumulation, analysis, warehousing and distribution of data, including billing, operations and log information.

About Birch Telecom

Founded in 1997 in Kansas City, MO, Birch Telecom is a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) serving primarily small-to mid-size businesses. The company is the major Southwestern Bell competitor in the Midwest, offering a range of services including local, long distance telephone service, equipment and Internet access, Web hosting and development through local offices in 23 cities throughout Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. For more information about Birch Telecom, visit Birch's Web site at www.birch.com.

About ACE*COMM

ACE*COMM delivers product based solutions for Telecommunications and Internet service providers worldwide. The Company develops technology and provides related services for voice, conventional data networks and Internet protocol (IP) based networks. ACE*COMM specializes in products and services that enable the capture, management, enhancement, warehousing and distribution of network data used to support the business operations of service providers. These Operations Support System (OSS) solutions are provided by the Company to a broad range of customers, delivering both public and private communications services, and include wireless carriers, incumbent and competitive local exchange carriers, national and international long distance carriers, Internet services providers and enterprises. ACE*COMM is a registered ISO 9001 quality standard company.

For more information on the company, refer to www.acecomm.com.