Ascend Announces Carrier-Class New Generation MAX TNT; Industry's Highest Capacity WAN Access Switch; MAX TNT Addresses Carrier, ISP, and Large Corporate Requirements for Greater Port Density, Scalability and Comprehensive LAN WAN Connectivity.

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 3, 1996--Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) today introduced the MAX TNT, the only WAN access switch that concentrates both dial-up and dedicated traffic in a single platform, providing unprecedented capacity at a breakthrough price point. The MAX TNT is the first system that gives service providers the ability to support 2,000 concurrent modem users or 4,000 ISDN or 56/64 Kbps Frame Relay connections in a single eight-foot rack.

The MAX TNT also is the only WAN access switch capable of terminating up to 150 T1/FT1 Frame Relay connections in a single 14-inch shelf. The MAX TNT is the next generation addition to Ascend's best-selling MAX family. The MAX WAN access switch family accounts for over 54 percent of the total WAN access concentrator, analog and ISDN, ports sold worldwide (source: The Dell O'ro Group, 1996). The MAX TNT is designed to answer the demand by carriers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and large corporate customers for a single platform capable of supporting high-volume, multi-service access requirements. This demand is being driven by the explosive growth in Internet access, online services, telecommuting, and the emerging market for Intranets.

"The number of concurrent sessions we support in the MAX TNT is a major leap beyond what any other vendor can deliver," said Bernie Schneider, Ascend's vice president, strategic business development. "More importantly, Ascend's 150-unit backorder for the MAX TNT -- representing 10 major customers -- indicates that we're meeting the demand for a carrier-class solution, which means not only an extraordinarily high-density solution, but one that meets a carrier's uncompromising requirements for reliability and uptime.

"We are looking at the MAX TNT to solve many of our scalability problems in providing our Virtual Gateway Service to large customers," said Richard Slezak, managing director for AT&T Global ISDN. "The MAX TNT provides a cost-effective and efficient way of providing large-scale dial access to a multitude of resources, from Frame Relay to video servers and Internet access."

"The MAX TNT is definitely a grand slam for Ascend," said David R. Boast, vice president of the Microsoft Division for UUNet Technologies, Inc., a nationwide Internet Service Provider. "The MAX TNT is a platform that will enable us to keep pace with the exponential growth of dial access services to the Internet while continuing to integrate new services. It also provides an important competitive advantage because of its capacity and low price per port. The MAX TNT is another example of why Ascend remains a dominant player in the Internet access market, and will continue to lead the industry in delivering products that meet our existing and future needs."

"The MAX TNT carves out an absolutely unique position for Ascend in meeting the needs of today's ISPs," according to John Morency, principal for The Registry, Inc., Newton, Mass., a consulting firm specializing in professional services for information technology. "Whereas the conventional remote access vendors currently are delivering products that support hundreds of lines, the MAX TNT is scalable up to thousands of lines. But even more compelling is the low price point that Ascend has achieved for this level of scalability, with integrated security and firewall capabilities, and full multi-service support."

A Modular Approach to Growth

The MAX TNT is based on a fully modular architecture that enables customers to add functionality and scale incrementally as their service requirements evolve. This modular architecture enables service providers to design a solution that satisfies the specific application and bandwidth requirements of their customer base.

The MAX TNT uses a fully distributed multiprocessor architecture and a multi-shelf hardware design. Each shelf is 14-inches high and can support up to 16 hot-swappable modules, with fully redundant, load-balancing power supplies. Customers can incrementally add capacity by tightly coupling up to three MAX TNT shelves together as one logical unit. This system can be configured as a single shelf with 288 modems, 672 Hybrid Access connections and 150 Frameline connections. It also can be configured as a two shelf system with the same capacity using one DS3 or as a three shelf system using T1/PRIs.

The primary applications available are:

The Digital Modem module provides analog and cellular support, using digital modems. The MAX TNT provides the most cost-effective dial-up solution with a single modem module that supports up to 48 digital modems at speeds up to 33.6 kbps.

The Hybrid Access module enables customers to migrate today's predominantly analog-based connectivity to reliable and cost-effective digital services, such as ISDN, Switched Digital, and Nx56/64K Channelized Frame Relay.

The FrameLine module supports leased T1/FT1 Frame Relay connections without the need to use more expensive Frame Relay switches as access concentrators.

The MAX TNT also can be configured with a broad range of WAN and other network interface modules, including:

WAN interface modules -- Eight port channelized T1/PRI module with integrated CSUs -- Eight port channelized E1/PRI module -- One port channelized DS3 module -- One port unchannelized DS3 module -- 10 port FrameLine module with integrated CSUs

Network Interface modules for high-speed switched or routed backbones -- Four port 10 Mbps Ethernet module -- Four port 10 Mbps and one port 100 Mbps Ethernet module -- Four port 10 Mbps Ethernet and one port FDDI module -- Four port Serial (V.35/RS-449/X.21) module -- One port HSSI module

Common Software Platform

With the introduction of the MAX TNT, Ascend offers customers the broadest and most highly scalable family of WAN access switches. Since the same robust software is used across the entire MAX product family, including the MAX TNT, customers can implement and use the same operational support, security, authentication, authorization, accounting and network management systems. In addition, by using Ascend's Secure Access Firewall, customers can have state-of-the-art firewall protection across their entire network. And, like the MAX, the MAX TNT supports all of the tunneling protocols required to build corporate Virtual Private Networks and Intranets.

Pricing and Availability

Available immediately, prices for the MAX TNT start at $18,750.

Ascend Communications

Ascend Communications, Inc. is a leading, worldwide provider of remote networking solutions for corporate central sites, Internet Service Providers' points of presence, remote offices, mobile workers and telecommuters. Ascend develops, manufactures, markets, sells and supports products which utilize bandwidth on demand to extend existing corporate networks for applications such as remote LAN access, Internet access, telecommuting, SOHO connectivity and videoconferencing/multimedia access. Detailed information on Ascend products, news announcements, seminars, service and support is available on Ascend's home page at the World Wide Web site http://www.ascend.com.

Ascend is headquartered at 1275 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, California 94502. Phone: [phone]; Fax [phone]; E-mail: [e-mail].

CONTACT: Gallagher PR

Kevin Gallagher, 510/743-7830

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