Allied Telesyn Delivers Revolutionary Broadband Solution: IP Video and Data over ADSL Via Ethernet-based Products.

Business Editors, Technology Writers

BOTHELL, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2002

Independent Operating Companies (IOCs) Believe Innovative Network

Design Will Capture Profitable Business from Cable and Satellite

Competition

Allied Telesyn, Inc. (www.alliedtelesyn.com), a world leader in network technologies for the access edge, announces a groundbreaking solution for delivering affordable and profitable IP video and data services over ADSL.

The first full multi-million dollar customer deployment with an IOC is currently underway following exhaustive trials and further customer deployments are soon to be announced.

IOCs have been facing an abundance of challenges in ramping their businesses for the coming decade. The companies have been seeking a greater return on their substantial investment in copper loop infrastructure. The increased scrutiny on ROI comes as their business bases are being attacked by competitors in the wireless, cable and satellite industries. New video and data service offerings are critical for protecting and increasing revenues.

"Video and data are going to be our lifeblood," said Kurt Hauge, plant manager for Vernon Telephone Cooperative, Inc., a member of Midwest Tel Net, a consortium of eight IOCs looking to Allied Telesyn to supply answers to their business challenges throughout their 1,450-square-mile service area. "I see video as our future core business. I see this as the determining factor whether we exist as a telecommunications provider 20 to 30 years from now."

For Hauge and others like him, the roadblocks to expanding services have been significant. Companies have looked to ATM to provide a solution, but they have been unable to provision, afford or maintain the network architecture. Its lack of scalability indicates that it is not the hoped-for Holy Grail in a multicast video environment. The industry has been left with a lack of simple, cost-effective, scalable solutions that can deliver the required services over pre-existing copper loop.

Allied Telesyn's Solution Changes the Competitive Landscape

Since the beginning of 2001, Allied Telesyn has been pursuing its strategy of "IP All the Way(TM)", which translates into the provision of simple, manageable and scalable IP solutions for its customers. Its solutions represent a truly end-to-end architecture, encompassing access, aggregation and core transport technologies and offer the lowest per-port cost of an end-to-end solution in the marketplace today.

"Most companies hide their weakness of not having an end-to-end solution by saying it supports a multi-vendor solution," said Allied Telesyn COO Howard Kamerer. "We actually provide a complete strategy. We offer best of breed solutions in each tier, but being a one-stop-shop is a real strength."

There are three key components in Allied Telesyn's network design for delivering bundled voice, video and data over standard copper lines: Layer 3 aggregation switch/routers, IP packet-based DSLAMs at the access edge, and multi-service broadband DTM core transport switches.

The backbone of the solution is based on a circuit switch architecture allowing customers to carve out bandwidth on a scalable format. This means 100 percent Quality of Service (QoS) architecture with a jitterless delivery mechanism and minimal overhead.

In addition to video transmission, the high bandwidth ADSL offering allows the option of offering a high-speed broadband data service over the same ADSL pair. With reasonably maintained copper lines, the quality obtainable is 9 Mbps at 12,000 ft., which is significantly greater than any comparable solution on the market. This superior performance level allows Allied Telesyn to provide both a high-speed data broadband service and two video set-top boxes. Single TV service and high-speed broadband data can be provided at distances exceeding 17,000 ft.

In addition to superior transmission distance with guaranteed QoS, other market-making features include:

-- Unmatched multicast bandwidth scalability

1Gbps equals 280 video streams at 3.5 Mbps with MPEG2 encoding

2Gbps equals 560 video streams at 3.5 Mbps with MPEG2 encoding

3Gbps equals 840 video streams at 3.5 Mbps with MPEG2 encoding

-- Clean transmissions

Jitter characteristics matched only by more expensive SONET

-- Superior bandwidth efficiency 

Bandwidth allocation to 512Kbps increments

Unidirectional channels in any size from 512 kbps up to full link speed

Asymmetric multicast channel support

-- Cost effectiveness

When providing an end-to-end solution, Allied Telesyn's architecture is approximately 50 percent more cost-effective than any comparable ATM solution.

According to Kamerer, Allied Telesyn is enabling an innovative network infrastructure that is significantly less expensive and much more scalable than traditional ATM/SONET alternatives, can be deployed relatively quickly, and can allow all IOCs to deliver an impressive return on investment. "Our solution changes the competitive landscape. We now possess a demonstrative, competitive advantage in the marketplace," he said.

Hauge agrees. "We've been thinking about this for four or five years, but the time was not right for our stringent requirements," he said. "As the technology began to evolve, we looked at a lot of different services and a lot of different vendors, and Allied Telesyn was the only one that excited us."

"I personally feel Allied Telesyn's solution is the most feasible way to transport and deploy broadband services to the customer. I think it has the potential to be the premier solution provider in merging voice, video and data," said Hauge.

With a Video over ADSL solution, DSL becomes more than a broadband pipe; it allows MWT to provide a high level of service and content to its customers, including both national and local broadcast channels, first run films and pay-per-view, community TV, and video on demand.

The market for Allied Telesyn's solution is enormous. Industry analyst Cahners In-Stat Group estimates 23 million households worldwide will subscribe to Video over xDSL by 2005.

The companies that make up MWT are Cochrane Cooperative Telephone, Coon Valley Farmer's Telephone Company, LaValle Telephone Cooperative, Lemonweir Valley Telephone Company, Hillsboro Telephone Company, Inc., Richland-Grant Telephone Cooperative, TechCom, Inc. and Vernon Telephone Cooperative, Inc.

About Allied Telesyn, Inc.

Allied Telesyn, Inc. leads the world in network technologies for the access edge. Since the company's inception in 1987, Allied Telesyn has been developing IP-based network products for use in video, voice and data networks at the metro edge, in education, government agencies and across the enterprise. Allied Telesyn's access, aggregation and core transport technologies range from simple Ethernet adapters, hubs and media converters to robust multilayer Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers, wireless systems, DTM and WDM transport solutions for delivering real-time voice, video and data. Allied Telesyn's comprehensive support and professional services programs are suited to meet the growing demands of today's switched broadband infrastructures. For more information, please see www.alliedtelesyn.com.