British Telecommunications plc Places Order Over $10 Million for Celerity, Teradyne's New ADSL Qualification System.

Business/Technology Editors

BOSTON and DEERFIELD, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2000

Teradyne's Celerity Enables BT to Qualify 13 Million Lines Every Week

Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) Teradyne, Inc. (NYSE:TER) Telecommunications Division today announced that British Telecommunications plc (BT) (NYSE:BTY) has placed an order of over $10 Million for Celerity, a comprehensive ADSL test system solution tuned to BT's ADSL product to augment their internally developed processes and systems. This is a worldwide `first' for BT and Teradyne. Celerity uses patented techniques to provide a breakthrough approach to pre-qualify BT's lines and equipment for ADSL services. Celerity accurately tests millions of lines in hours and passes results to a data warehouse that is used to determine whether lines are qualified to install, require conditioning, or are disqualified. Celerity will be used for on-demand provisioning testing as well as service assurance.

"Based on our experience of the complexities of deploying broadband Internet access services to consumers, we worked with Teradyne on applying automated testing to improve our ADSL qualification and provisioning processes. Celerity will not only significantly cut our costs to qualify and provision ADSL, but will identify new potential customers that we would have previously disqualified," says Brian Greenwood, general manager BT customer service.

BT invested in Celerity only after putting it through extensive technology and operational trials to prove its accuracy is comparable to double-ended testing, to demonstrate operational capability and to confirm its value. Installation will begin this year. "Our task was to evaluate whether a single-ended insertion loss estimate could yield sufficient accuracy," says Dave Aufenast, BTexaCT, Advanced Copper Technologies Group. "We compared Celerity against our manual double-ended insertion-loss measurements and records system during the trial, and proved that Celerity gave a real improvement in the accuracy of a single-ended insertion-loss estimates compared with our existing methods and was comparable to a double-ended measurement."

BT will use Celerity to test all 13 million Teradyne connected lines in the access network every week and identify lines that can support digital services. This information helps BT increase the productivity of ADSL deployment and maintenance by:

-- Reducing qualification cost and cycle time: Celerity provides accurate test
results to a database so that BT does not have to rely on records and field
dispatches to detect the presence of ADSL impairments or determine the line
insertion loss.

-- Reducing wasted provisioning effort: Celerity reduces "false greens" - lines
thought to be able to carry ADSL, but due to faults or excessive length are not
ADSL ready - by saving wasted dispatches.

"To an incumbent service provider, the cost of adding additional test access is quite high, so a product like Celerity really leverages existing infrastructure to provide much better information about the loop environment for DSL than traditional narrow-band tests," says Leif Hoglund, Director of Telecom OS for RHK, a leading U.S. telecommunications market research firm. "Fast, accurate, low-cost testing is essential to providing a better DSL turn-up experience for customers and better on-going maintenance."

According to Wayne Lasson, general manager of Teradyne's Telecommunications Division, "We are very pleased that our strategic relationship with BT has led to the first worldwide deployment of Celerity's new technology for ADSL qualification and provisioning."

Celerity will also enable significant upside revenue achievement by reducing "false reds" - lines that were thought incapable of carrying ADSL services but in fact are ADSL ready. Knowing these lines are qualified, BT can sell more ADSL sooner to meet market demand.

"We are now able to augment our records with a measurement of the potential of the line thereby improving BT's response to customer demand." says Ray Clay, BT Test Systems, supply and development manager.

Using proven expert systems and patented DSP-based, narrowband measurements, Celerity performs accurate, single-ended loop qualification executed via the existing narrowband test bus in today's voice switches. This provides automatic qualification of the installed base of copper loops (those lines exposed to ADSL) in hours rather than the lengthy existing manual methods

"Celerity allows BT to sell and deploy more ADSL sooner by identifying all lines ready for ADSL," says Chris Bohrson, Director of Sales and Marketing for the Telecommunications Division. "The reliability of the Celerity test results means that BT and their partners can begin to generate revenue for ADSL services much faster than by using manual testing and the records-based system. We look forward to a bright future of extending the technology of Celerity as BT and their partners extend the services they deploy over their installed base of copper lines."

About BT:

British Telecommunications plc is one of the world's leading providers of telecommunications services. Its principal activities include local, long distance and international telecommunications services, mobile communications, Internet services and IT solutions. BT has operations in more than 30 countries worldwide, with ventures in the Republic of Ireland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Latin America and India. BT and AT&T have also created Concert, the leading global telecommunications company serving multi-national business customers, international carriers and Internet service providers worldwide. For more information on British Telecommunications plc, visit: http://www.bt.com

About Teradyne

Teradyne is the world's largest supplier of automatic test equipment and related software for the electronics and telecommunications industries and a leading supplier of high-performance backplane assemblies and connectors. Teradyne supports its products through an extensive service and applications engineering network, with technical centers located throughout the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Teradyne reported sales of approximately $1.8 billion in 1999 and currently has about 8,500 employees worldwide. Teradyne's World Wide Web address is www.teradyne.com.

About Teradyne Telecommunications Division:

Teradyne Broadband Test develops state-of-the-art-testing capabilities that support service provider's goals to sell and deploy more services sooner and improve the efficiency of qualification, provisioning, and customer care. Teradyne's seven years of internet protocol testing experience enhances its 27 years experience in providing test systems that support voice customer care for over 110 million voice lines worldwide. For more information on Teradyne's Broadband Test Products, visit Teradyne at: http://www.teradyne.com/prods/ttd/ttdhome.html