JERSEY CITY, New Jersey, November 16 /PRNewswire/ -- IPC Systems, the leading provider of indispensable trading communications solutions to the world's leading financial services firms, today announced the completion of the first phase of its North American network expansion. IPC's east ring deployment directly connects six IPC point-of-presence (POP) facilities in key electronic trading locations across New York, Chicago and Houston via a high-speed fully, restorable optical network. The upgraded network infrastructure leverages the latest wave technology to enable the secure delivery of private line voice and electronic connectivity services over a high-speed, high-bandwidth service platform to support the growing demand for low-latency trading connectivity and supporting services.

This continued investment in state-of-the-art backbone infrastructure and technology will ensure that IPC's expanding global trading community maintains direct access to the most efficient connection highway to reach their clients and execution venues across the region. Built in conjunction with tier-one carrier partners, the new platform provides customers with resilient service delivery and self-healing re-routing capabilities. It delivers customer voice and electronic trading data over a secure converged IP-based network ensuring the lowest possible latency and highest performance.

IPC has dedicated significant resources to plan and thoroughly test, not just the technology, but the implementation method, tracing out various routing options for optimal performance, said Jeff Britell, director, Network Planning, IPC Systems. Our customers demand a best of breed approach and IPC proactively chose service providers to support the lowest latency and space diverse routes to exceed these expectations, which was no small task.

With the completion of this strategic initiative, IPC has successfully completed the first phase of its major network expansion program, significantly expanding its network capacity and delivering a first-class multi-service platform that meets the most stringent performance needs, while improving latency and resiliency.

This is just the beginning, and again confirms IPC as the logical choice for financial firms looking to connect to a global network that is latency efficient, and offers the greatest range of connectivity options in key markets. IPC already links directly with over 2,400 trading floors and exchanges worldwide and connects more than 3,600 trading participants through its secure private global network. Our next program of activity has already started with further expansion in capacity and increasingly lower latency to meet the escalating demand for our new service offerings from the financial community, added Lou Marchese, vice president, Network Services Americas, IPC Systems.

This upgrade is part of the IPC's continuing commitment to its customers to provide the optimum trading network and follows the company's recent announcement (http://www.ipc.com/repository/document/416.pdf) regarding the completion of its high-speed Pan-European Optical Network connecting nine major trading locations.

About IPC

IPC is a leading provider of indispensable financial trading communications solutions to the world's leading financial services firms and global enterprises. With 35 years of expertise and innovation, IPC provides its customers with global systems and solutions, as well as a suite of products and enhanced services that includes advanced Voice-over-IP technology and integrated network and 24x7x365 management services in more than 60 countries. Based in Jersey City, N.J., IPC has approximately 900 employees throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions. For more information, visit www.ipc.com.

Media Contacts Cliff Fox Matt Pennacchio IPC Systems, Inc. Ruder Finn for IPC +1-201-253-2291 +1-212-715-1613 cliff.fox@ipc.com pennacchiom@ruderfinn.com

SOURCE: IPC Systems, Inc.

CONTACT: Cliff Fox of IPC Systems, Inc., +1-201-253-2291,cliff.fox@ipc.com or Matt Pennacchio, Ruder Finn for IPC, +1-212-715-1613,pennacchiom@ruderfinn.com