Emperative Brings Broadband to the Mass Market With New Rapid Cable Modem Provisioning Software; Cox Deploys Cable Modem Express to Support Rapid Cable Modem Activation.

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2001

Emperative Inc., the leading provider of on-demand, network and service provisioning software, today released new software that significantly decreases how long consumers have to wait for cable modem service--from weeks to immediate activation. The new provisioning software, Cable Modem Express (CMX), has been released for general availability and has been deployed by Cox Communications, announced today in a separate news release.

For the broadband market to continue to grow, it must build its subscriber-base through mass-market sales channels. However, broadband service activation currently is a time consuming and costly process. Consumers wait at least one week for a technician visit to turn on service. Activating a new subscriber costs the service provider more than $180(1). Current costs and installation difficulties--the so-called "provisioning bottleneck"-- will not scale to grow the broadband market from today's several millions to tomorrow's hundreds-of-millions of broadband subscribers. Simply, service providers need to make broadband as easy to activate as traditional dial-up Internet service but have not had the provisioning infrastructure to push cable modems out through retail sales channels.

Cable Modem Express has been designed to address the specific provisioning issues with activating cable modems. "Provisioning" refers to the many complex events required to activate, deliver and manage any type of communications service.

"Clearly all broadband service--cable, DSL, wireless, fiber optic--needs to be much less complex to activate and manage," said Abraham Gutman, Emperative president and CEO. "The only path that will allow the industry to grow from its base of early adopters is through retail sales channels. Unless broadband is as easy to get as traditional dial-up, the industry will not grow to hundreds of millions of subscribers."

The Provisioning Pieces

Enabling cable modem activation requires the self-discovery of the modems and coordination of many complex elements. In a typical scenario, Cable Modem Express sits in the cable operator's network and automatically recognizes cable modems, sets the upstream and down stream speeds, monitors subscriber self-provisioning, and manages conversations with back-office OSSs such as billing and customer care systems.

"Building viable cable modem retail sales will help give MSOs an even greater lead in the race to deploy high-speed Internet services," said Strategis Group analyst Keith Kennebeck. "Although the cable industry has captured first mover advantage over DSL, the real fight now is about who can capture the greatest share of the mass market. Both DSL and cable are implementing retail sales strategies. If MSOs can simplify and automate their activation processes, making retail sales more practical, they will gain a key competitive advantage."

To enable modem self-discovery and rapid service activation, Cable Modem Express includes:

--A state-based process engine based on Emperative's flagship end-to-end provisioning platform, ProvEn;

--Hardware independent activation of DOCSIS and selected non-DOCSIS cable modems.

--An integrated DHCP/TFTP/TOD(2) server for IP address management, boot file generation, dynamic cable modem auto-configuration, on-demand bandwidth throttling, and delivery of tier-priced value-added services;

--XML interfaces for enabling end-user self-provisioning through OSS and customer care applications;

Cable Modem Express has been designed for out-of-the-box installation and deployment. It is a point solution for easy network deployment. Pricing starts at $4 dollars per subscriber.

About Cable Modem Express

Cable Modem Express is a Java-based, self-install solution for hardware-independent cable modem activation. Network engineers can rapidly deploy Cable Modem Express, reducing time to market through minimized integration. OSS and web-based customer care applications call Cable Modem Express via a simple XML interface to add, query, modify or delete cable modem service over any DOCSIS CMTS including those from ADC, Cisco, RiverDelta, and Terayon and Terayon non-DOCSIS systems. By addressing these specific cable modem activation issues, Cable Modem Express is a needed solution for selling cable modem service through retail sites.

About ProvEn

ProvEn is a sophisticated provisioning engine designed to enable end user self-activation and self-management of broadband services. It sits behind the service provider's web portal and enables rapid subscriber enrollment through real-time and fully automated provisioning processes, reduced operating costs through significantly decreased provisioning errors and order rework, and quick rollout of new, value-added service offerings through easy introduction and management of network devices and servers. Ilets are the intelligent connections from ProvEn to other systems such as broadband applications, customer management, and network edge devices. Written in Java, they contain significant provisioning domain knowledge to provide a fault tolerant, highly network-aware interface while minimizing custom development.

About Emperative

Founded in August 1998,Emperative, Inc. is the leading provider of on-demand, multi-vendor network and service provisioning products for access and core optical, DSL, cable and wireless networks. Our management team hails from industry powerhouses such as Telcordia Technologies, US West (now Qwest Communications Int 'l), MediaOne, Hewlett-Packard and Lucent Technologies. Emperative is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts and has a development office in Boulder, Colorado. For information on Emperative products, services and career opportunities, visit us at www.emperative.com or e-mail us at [e-mail].

(1) Statistics provided by The Yankee Group, the Boston-based analyst consulting firm.

(2) DHCP = Dynamic Host Control Protocol; TFTM =Trivial File Transfer Protocol; TOD = Time of Day.