Ascend Communications and AT&T Paradyne's Customer Support Organization Sign Third-Party Service Agreement.

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 1995--Ascend Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASND), a leading supplier of high-speed digital access equipment, announced today that it has entered into a third party service agreement with AT&T Paradyne's Customer Support Organization (CSO). This partnership will enable both companies to provide expanded service offerings to North American users of Ascend's network access products. Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T Paradyne's CSO will provide users remote maintenance, on-site maintenance and installation support for all of Ascend's remote access product lines.

"We are pleased to offer Ascend's partners a single point-of-contact to provide installation, maintenance and a variety of network management services to customers for all Ascend products," said Bernie Schneider, vice president of marketing for Ascend Communications. "We chose AT&T Paradyne's CSO because it is known for its innovative support systems designed to deliver comprehensive, reliable, and cost-effective solutions for our customers."

Under terms of this agreement, Ascend will offer its partners on-site support services from AT&T Paradyne including a standard maintenance program of 5 days per week, 9 hours per day and an extended maintenance program of 7 days per week, 24 hours per day support. Remote support via telephone and remote dial-up to Ascend's products is also available. Custom programs tailored to a partner or customer's particular needs are available directly from AT&T Paradyne's CSO.

"We welcome the opportunity to support Ascend's remote access products," said Robert Thomas, vice president of AT&T Paradyne's CSO. "The third party arrangement creates a win/win situation for both companies, allowing Ascend and AT&T's Paradyne's CSO to serve a broader base of customer needs. This agreement is a major accomplishment toward our goal of expanding the remote access product set we support."

Ascend's products include the Pipeline family of remote site bridge/routers which supports high-speed access to the Internet and the corporate enterprise network for telecommuters, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), and remote office users; the MAX family of remote access servers for corporate central-sites, carrier central offices or Internet Points-of-Presence (POPs); and the Multiband family for videoconferencing access and other multimedia applications.

The service offerings from AT&T Paradyne are available now from Ascend for the U.S. and Canada.

The AT&T Paradyne Customer Support Organization has been providing a wide variety of network support services to the industry for over twenty-five years. Today the company has over 140 service locations in North America.

Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufactures, markets, 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, and videoconferencing/multimedia access.

Ascend is headquartered at 1275 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, California 94502. Phone: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; E-mail: [e-mail]. Ascend's home page on the World Wide Web is http://www.ascend.com.

CONTACT: Gallagher PR

Kevin Gallagher, 510/743-7830

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AT&T Paradyne

Dan Borgmeyer, 813/530-2993

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