Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN) Chooses FileTek and Says "Y'ello"(1) to StorHouse for Its Enterprise Archiving Solution.

StorHouse Helps MTN Meet Government Regulatory Compliance Rules, Achieve Cost Savings, and Enhance Overall Operational Efficiency

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- FileTek, Inc., a data access and management software provider, today announced that Mobile Telephone Networks (MTN), one of South Africa's leading telecommunications companies, selected FileTek's proven StorHouse[R] technology as the central archive repository for MTN's enterprise-wide corporate data. MTN, a well-established and fast-growing company with over 31.5 million subscribers, provides cellular, satellite, and Internet access services to 21 African and Middle Eastern countries. FileTek's success follows a rigorous tender process. During this process, archiving experts from Bytes Technology Group supported MTN with its project design and selection.

Initially, StorHouse is functioning as the secure central archive repository for MTN's call detail records (CDRs) to provide compliance with the South African Regulation of Interception of Communications Act 70 of 2002 (RIC). RIC dictates that telecommunications providers must support the interception and archiving of qualifying direct and indirect communications by March 27, 2006. To demonstrate its commitment to good corporate governance, MTN complied before the mandatory deadline and is using FileTek's unique relational technology to store and manage three years of call detail history over and above the RIC requirements.

During phase one of the project, MTN will load approximately 100 terabytes of detailed CDRs to StorHouse relational tables and regulatory compliant files. During subsequent project phases, MTN will add more applications - e-mail archiving, imaging, data warehouse detail records, and business documents - to the archive, boosting total StorHouse data storage projections to multiple petabytes over the next several years. StorHouse's comprehensive software feature set and scalability will enable MTN to sustain this projected growth while immediately satisfying government regulatory compliance rules for CDR data.

StorHouse is a data storage and access management system specifically designed to administer massive amounts of fixed content, historical data and their associated backups. StorHouse technology combines industry-leading scalable storage devices and Open System processors with specialized storage management (StorHouse/SM), relational database management (StorHouse/RM), and file system interface (StorHouse/RFS) software components. MTN is using StorHouse/SM and StorHouse/RM to load, retrieve, and manage the CDR archive and StorHouse/RFS to store and retrieve supporting file-based data.

StorHouse software is engineered to support large archives such as the MTN initiative. StorHouse/SM, the StorHouse storage management component, promotes data longevity through storage virtualization and automatic storage management. StorHouse can accept new storage devices and media types dynamically as they become available and migrate existing data to them automatically and transparently to user applications. The system remains storage vendor independent by incorporating best-of-breed, available technology from multiple suppliers. Furthermore, to promote high data availability and business continuance, StorHouse/SM supports automatic backup, recovery, migration, replication, retention, and data protection features.

StorHouse/RM, the StorHouse relational database management component, works in conjunction with StorHouse/SM to specifically administer the storage, access, and movement of relational data. Features provide ODBC, SQL, and ESQL interfaces; high-speed FTP data load and unload utilities; RDBMS gateways to Oracle, IBM DB2 UDB, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase; and a patented partitioning scheme that enables scaling to multiple petabytes. StorHouse/RM supports highly available, cost-effective relational archives that satisfy enterprise-wide information lifecycle management and compliance requirements.

StorHouse/RFS, the StorHouse file system interface component used for file-based applications, provides the unprecedented scalability required to support billions of records. Unlike traditional file systems, StorHouse/RFS provides inherent scalability by using relational technology instead of inode- and link-based structures to index and locate user files. The software simply presents itself to an application as a virtual drive (an NFS, NTFS, or CIFS mount or share point). Applications read and write files to the virtual drive just as they would to any mapped Windows[R] drive or network file system (NFS) mount point.

Erich Roberts, MTN SA IS Group Executive, commented, "In planning this project, MTN devised an enterprise archive strategy that would encompass all archive requirements in a single, centrally managed repository. After evaluating major vendor solutions, MTN chose FileTek's StorHouse product to provide this central archive function because, in our opinion, only StorHouse checked off all the boxes for operational efficiency, legal compliance, cost savings, revenue assurance, scalability, data consistency, and data integrity standards that MTN's business demands. Our initial RIC implementation makes us confident that StorHouse can both satisfy our current legislative commitments and provide the capability to deliver future business benefits as MTN grows and develops. For example, in the near future, we plan to improve the overall cost-effectiveness and efficiency of our current billing system by offloading most historical billing data from that system to StorHouse. We are confident that StorHouse and FileTek will help us achieve these goals."

Ann Dyball, FileTek's Regional Area Manager, added, "FileTek is proud to add MTN to our list of telecommunications customers. StorHouse enables MTN to meet government regulatory compliance rules and provides the scalability needed to accommodate the company's growing data volumes generated by expanding customer bases and new service offerings. MTN is an exciting, innovative company, and FileTek looks forward to a long-term business relationship with them."

About FileTek

FileTek, Inc. is a provider of data storage and access management solutions, enabling enterprises, worldwide and across multiple industry segments, to rapidly access ever-growing volumes of historical data. FileTek is headquartered at 9400 Key West Avenue, Rockville, MD 20850. Telephone: [phone]. Fax: [phone]. FileTek's international headquarters, FileTek Ltd, is located at One Northumberland Ave., London WC2N 5BW. Telephone: [phone]. Fax: [phone]. The company also has offices across North America. Internet: www.filetek.com.

About MTN

The MTN Group is an Africa and Middle East-focused holding company that invests in the telecommunications industry, providing cellular, satellite, and Internet access services to 21 African and Middle East countries. MTN supports sustainable development with its rollout of telecommunications services and its investment in community projects focusing on education, science and technology, and arts and culture.

1 "Y'ello" is MTN's special welcoming greeting to its employees, vendors, current customers, and future service subscribers.

[c]2006 FileTek. All rights reserved. FileTek and StorHouse are U.S. registered trademarks of FileTek, Inc. Other trademarks included herein are the properties of their respective owners. The following U.S. patents protect StorHouse: 4,864,572; 5,247,660; 5,727,197; 6,049,804.