ASCEND ANNOUNCES NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY FOR LARGE SCALE TELECOMMUTING AND BRANCH OFFICE NETWORKS; New Features for Pipeline and MAX Product Families.

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 8, 1995--Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND), a leading supplier of high-speed remote access equipment, today announced new features and functionality across its entire remote access product line. The new features to Ascend's Pipeline and MAX products, include support of Novell's Internetwork Packet Exchange Protocol (IPX) routing and wide area network (WAN) protocol support for V.110 and V.120 rate adaption.

"Our customers, with networks supporting thousands of dial-in users, have highly specialized requirements," said Mory Ejabat, Ascend's president and CEO. "These new features across our remote access product line give our customers the tools they need to optimize their network investments. With the exploding growth of telecommuting and SOHO (small office/home office) access, we expect more Fortune 500 companies to build similar large-scale networks."

All Pipeline and MAX models now support IPX routing over industry-standard PPP (Point-to-Point), Ascend MPP (Multichannel Point-to-Point) and Frame Relay encapsulation. With the addition of IPX support, Ascend's products are fully interoperable with non-Ascend products that conform to these protocols.

Other new features include optional support of V.110 and V.120 rate adaption which adds support for remote users dialing in with asynchronous terminal adapters. Up to 24 V.120 sessions are supported on the Pipeline 400 and up to 96 are supported on the MAX. Support for V.120 rate adaption, which is a software option, is available now for $1,000. The addition of V.120 rate adaption adds compatibility between Ascend's products and industry-leading terminal adapters.

Support for V.110 rate adaption is available now as a slot card for the MAX and supports up to 48 sessions at a cost of $6,000.

All new features and functionality to the Pipeline and MAX product families are now available and began shipping last week.

Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufacturers, sells and supports a broad range of high-speed digital wide area network access products. These products use bandwidth on demand to enhance existing corporate networks for applications such as remote LAN access, telecommuting, SOHO and Internet access, videoconferencing, and multimedia access. Ascend is headquartered at 1275 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, Calif., 94502. Phone: [phone] or 510/769-6001; Fax: [phone]; E-mail: [e-mail]. Ascend's home page on the World Wide Web is http://www.ascend.com.

CONTACT: Ascend Communications

Jerri Emm, 510/769-6001

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Gallagher Public Relations

Kevin Gallagher, 510/743-7830

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