Ascend Announces GX 250 Multiservice Extender, Expands Core Service Offerings and Capabilities.

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 1999--

Rapid Provisioning of New Private Line and Voice Transport

Services through the Core; Williams Communications Already

Deploying Dozens of Units

Ascend Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:ASND), a leader in wide area networking (WAN) and Intelligent Network (IN) solutions for providers and users of the next-generation public network, today unveiled the GX 250(TM) Multiservice Extender for the market-leading GX 550(TM) "Smart" Core ATM switch. Williams Communications, a unit of Williams (NYSE:WMB), is deploying 70 GX 250s on its nationwide fiber-optic network in connection with its private line and voice transport service offerings. The GX 250 enhances the GX 550 by adding private line and voice transport services, further building the multiservice capability of the GX 550. Service providers can now further streamline and increase the flexibility of their networks, perform rapid service provisioning, realize lower equipment and operations costs, and offer multiple services (ATM, Frame Relay, IP/MPLS and private line and voice transport). The GX 250 is another milestone in Ascend's strategy and leadership position to build service providers' next-generation public networks.

The capabilities of the GX 250 help streamline a service provider's network architecture by further integrating the switching/transmission network layer, eliminating requirements for legacy transmission equipment and related network management demands. The convergence of network layers increases scalability, flexibility, and reliability, while reducing costs. Convergence also allows for differentiated classes of Quality of Service (QoS) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), enables support for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), and creates real bandwidth management rather than stranding bandwidth.

"Service providers are currently competing for billions of dollars in private line services every year," said Dennis Fiore, product marketing manager, Core Systems Division, Ascend Communications. "The GX 250 will allow existing and new private line buildouts to migrate onto the next-generation public network, further leveraging the ATM core."

Streamlined Network Eases Management and Capital Costs

The carrier-class GX 250/GX 550 solution supports the convergence of the switching and transmission networks by integrating Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) Add-Drop Muxes (ADM) and Digital Cross-Connect Systems (DCS) capabilities. The new GX 250 grooms, monitors, and tests DS3 private lines, which eliminates expensive DCS equipment, and the GX 550 directly connects to Dense Wave Division Multiplexers (DWDM) with its OC-48/STM-16 interface, eliminating the need for costly SONET equipment.

The integration of SONET ADM and DCS capabilities reduces the number of required network elements, reduces network complexity, lowers capital and operating costs, and increases network reliability. The new GX 250/GX 550 solution also enables service providers to better utilize their existing network infrastructure. The solution can co-exist with legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) equipment, enabling service providers to migrate traffic to alleviate congestion and improve reliability on their networks, while preserving investments previously made in legacy TDM equipment.

"Ascend's vision of a single multiservice network enables us to offer all services from one network, thereby simplifying our network and operations, and increasing the return we realize on network investments," said Wayne Price, director of network architecture at Williams Network. "Our deployed GX 550s are even more valuable to us now because the GX 250 makes them multiservice-enabled, adding private line and voice transport."

As a multiservice extender shelf co-located with the GX 550, the GX 250 is a logical extension of Ascend's ATM core switch. The GX 250 increases the port density of the GX 550 with a "port fan-out" architecture to up to 480 T3s, offering service providers a high-density solution. The GX 250 also includes two independent half-shelves with six slots configurable for DS1 (clear channel and channelized), DS3 (clear channel and channelized) and OC-12 channelized service offerings, increasing the offerings previously available on the GX 550. Initially, the GX 250 delivers clear channel DS3, with the additional services available in the first half of 2000.

New Services Provisioned in Minutes

The new "point, click, done" rapid service provisioning capabilities of the GX 250 can reduce provisioning of new services from as much as four weeks to just minutes. This reduction allows service providers to quickly add new revenue-generating services for a rapid return on investment, as well as to better serve their customer base by turning on new services the same day an order is taken.

Services can be provisioned from one location with the GX 250/GX 550 solution with an easy-to-use, point-and-click graphical user interface (GUI), instead of traversing through multiple layers of DCS and SONET network elements. The ease of provisioning is made possible by converged switching/transmission layers, the ability of Ascend's Virtual Network Navigator (VNN) to automatically find the optimal path through a network, and end-to-end management with Ascend's integrated Navis service and network management platform.

Carrier-Class Availability

Service providers benefit from Ascend's industry-leading levels of availability and reliability -- delivering "Five 9s," or 99.999 percent service up time. The availability features on the GX 250 platform minimize interruption of services during failures. With 1:N redundancy, a single backup protects multiple provisionable service ports, and Automatic Restore provides all backup systems with automatic switchover capabilities in the event of a failure. The availability features of the GX 250 platform also include Rapid Upgrade, which allows for system software upgrades to networks without service outage, enabling new service features to be deployed more rapidly.

"Service providers like GST are demanding features such as 50 millisecond automatic restore capabilities and the ability to connect directly to DWDM equipment at OC-48 speeds. Ascend offers these features today," said Steve Hensley, vice president of Engineering, GST Telecommunications. "Ascend's GUI-based system provisioning also offers a profound advantage over element management or command line interface, which require the time-consuming provisioning of multiple network elements. This dramatically decreases the complexity of networks and allows services to be turned up and provisioned in minutes, instead of days or weeks."

Williams Network Deploying GX 250s Today

Williams Communications is currently deploying 70 GX 250s with existing Multiservice GX 550 ATM "Smart" Core Switches in approximately 50 points-of-presence (POPs) nationwide -- with more installations planned later this year. Williams Communications will initially use the GX 250s primarily to increase its bandwidth wholesaling offerings on the GX 550 platform.

"With Ascend's GX 250 Multiservice Extender, we are not only increasing our service offerings with the addition of DS-3 private line services, but we can implement those services almost immediately," said Price. "In a traditional network, we would need to provision each piece of SONET and DCS equipment separately, creating weeks of work to turn on new services. Because the Ascend solution incorporates SONET and DCS functionality into one box and includes a point-click-done provisioning capability, we can turn those weeks into minutes and offer new services to our customers almost immediately."

With the addition of the GX 250s to its network, Williams Communications will have incorporated each of Ascend's primary core switching platforms into its network, including the GX 550, Multiservice CBX 500(TM) ATM Switches, and Multiservice B-STDX 9000(TM) Frame Relay Switches. With Ascend's product line of market-leading core switching products -- and Navis, Ascend's end-to-end service and network management solution -- Williams Communications can offer all of its broadband services from one network. The array of platforms from Ascend allows Williams Communications flexibility based on the needs of individual customers and individual POPs within its network.

A New Class of Service Provider

Ascend's focus on services, scalability, flexibility and reliability with the GX 250/GX 550 enables carriers to converge on a new type of service provider. Historically, service providers were specialized, with clear service segmentation based on one or two service offerings from each carrier. With the ability to offer multiple services on one network, the line between traditional carriers is blurring and Interexchange Carriers (IXCs), Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), and Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) are migrating toward "Super Carrier" status as they offer a full range of competing services.

Availability and Pricing

The GX 250 will be available in June 1999. The GX 250 is available for $7,000 per DS3 channel. Customers outside the U.S. should contact their local Ascend representative or reseller for pricing and availability information.

About Ascend Communications

Ascend Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:ASND) develops, manufactures, sells and services wide area networking solutions for telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers and corporate customers worldwide.

For more information about Ascend and its products, please visit the Ascend Web site at www.ascend.com, or send e-mail to [e-mail]. For Investor Relations, please call our communications hotline at 800-648-3059 or 760-704-4423 (outside the US & Canada). Additional investor information can also be accessed on our Web site at: http://www.ascend.com/investor/. Ascend is headquartered at One Ascend Plaza, 1701 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, Calif. 94502; phone is 800/ASCEND4 and fax is 510-814-2300.

In January 1999, the Company entered into an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the "Merger Agreement") with Lucent Technologies Inc. ("Lucent"), pursuant to which, each outstanding share of Ascend common stock will be exchanged for 0.825 shares of Lucent common stock and each outstanding option or warrant to purchase Ascend common stock will be converted into an option or warrant to purchase Lucent common stock (adjusted for the exchange ratio).

In February 1999, Lucent announced a two-for-one stock split, payable on April 1, 1999, to shareholders of record as of March 5, 1999. Under the terms of the Merger Agreement, the exchange ratio will be adjusted for the effect of this stock split and any similar changes in the capitalization of Lucent.

The foregoing statements may contain forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations as a result of factors including, but not limited to, the Company's success in developing, introducing or shipping new products, competition, the mix of distribution channels employed, the Company's dependence on single or limited source suppliers for certain components used in its products, risks inherent in international sales, seasonality and general economic conditions. These and other factors are discussed in Ascend's 10-K, 10-Q and other filings made periodically with the Securities and Exchange Commission.