Albany Mutual Telephone Association Delivers New Triple Play Broadband Services to Minnesota Using Pannaway's IP Ethernet Copper/Fiber Access Platform.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Nortel and Pannaway Enable Minnesota Telco to Deliver SIP-based VoIP Services

Pannaway Technologies, Inc., designers and developers of next-generation, converged IP broadband systems to telecommunications companies, today announced that Minnesota-based, Albany Mutual Telephone Association has selected its multi award-winning IP Ethernet-based, Service Convergence Network (SCN(TM)) for copper and fiber broadband deployments, to deliver Triple Play services to its rural subscribers. The 55 year-old cooperative is using a lab certified, interoperable SIP solution from Nortel and Pannaway and is running IP-OLT (Optical Line Termination) FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) to 70% of its subscriber base.

For this next-generation network upgrade, Albany Mutual Telephone has deployed a new DMS-10 SIP upgrade from Nortel in conjunction with Pannaway's fiber Broadband Access Switches (BAS(TM)), fiber Residential Gateway NIDs (RGN(TM)) and Broadband Aggregation Routers (BAR(TM)). The cooperative will also use Pannaway's industry- acclaimed Broadband Access Manager (BAM(TM)) to reduce the installation complexity and operational expenses (OPEX) associated with rolling out and maintaining its new copper and fiber-based broadband equipment and services.

"We are pleased that our interoperability efforts with Pannaway are delivering value to our joint ILEC customers", said Rob Scheible, Senior Manager, Carrier Multimedia Networks at Nortel. "Our primary goal is to provide rural telcos like Albany Mutual Telephone Association with a seamless transition from their existing TDM architectures to IP Ethernet and SIP-based networks."

In addition to its new SIP-based VoIP services, the cooperative is delivering high-speed Internet access and all digital IP TV with a very robust channel line up - all over its new Pannaway access network. These new copper and fiber-based bundled services will enable the cooperative to keep local cable and ISP competitors at bay.

"The flexibility of Pannaway's SCN platform enables us to easily deploy IP Ethernet copper or fiber networks depending on the distance or bandwidth capacity needed to support specific broadband services", said Tom Eveslage, Central Office Supervisor of Albany Mutual Telephone Association. "Additionally, Pannaway's ability to seamlessly interoperate with our existing Nortel DMS-10 voice switch represents a huge reduction in operational and capital expenses."

Before selecting Pannaway, the cooperative evaluated all of the major ATM and IP access providers and selected Pannaway's SCN based on its non-proprietary IP technology, scaleable bandwidth capacity, flexible copper and fiber deployment options and unmatched remote broadband management capabilities.

"One area of major importance as mixed copper and fiber networks become more widely deployed is the need for a simplified method of managing and provisioning both network types in a consistent manner", said Kevin Brown, Vice President of Marketing for Pannaway. "Broadband management is an area where Pannaway has made a significant investment and we're pleased that Albany Mutual Telephone Association saw this as a competitive differentiator during the evaluation process."

About Albany Mutual Telephone Association

Established in 1951, Albany Mutual Telephone Association currently operates three exchanges in central Minnesota serving approximately 4,000 access lines. With an extensive fiber optic network, the cooperative is able to provide state-of-the-art communication and entertainment services to its members.

About Pannaway Technologies

Pannaway delivers customer-proven, broadband access solutions that enable telephone companies to offer new advanced services to their rural subscribers. Based on industry-standard Internet Protocol (IP), Ethernet and session initiation protocol (SIP) technologies, Pannaway's Service Convergence Network (SCN(TM)) architecture allows telecommunications service providers to increase revenue through the delivery of converged Primary Line VoIP(SM), high-speed data and IP TV services. The privately held company is headquartered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and has been building innovative broadband access solutions and service/support programs to fit the specific needs of rural telecom providers since 2002.

For more information, please visit www.pannaway.com.