NetScout and Cisco Team to Provide Network Performance Management Solution to TDS Telecommunications.

Business/Technology Editors

WESTFORD, Mass--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2000

Emerging National Telco Provider Improves Application

Response Time by Monitoring the Infrastructure

Performance of its Frame Relay Network

NetScout Systems (NASDAQ: NTCT) today announced that TDS TELECOM has selected NetScout's network performance management system in combination with Cisco's routed wide area network (RWAN) management solution to provide visibility into customer usage of its frame relay network. TDS TELECOM is using the combined solution to provide insight into service level performance such as monitoring customers' network usage and measuring application response time.

TDS TELECOM serves the telecommunications needs of more than a million residential and commercial customers in 28 states from its Madison, Wis. headquarters. The TDS TELECOM network spans more than 600,000 customer access lines and delivers telecommunication services including high speed Internet and multimedia access. The company's network originates from 108 traditional incumbent point-of-presence telephone companies and several new competitive local exchange point-of-presence locations throughout the Midwest.

"Knowing how applications are responding on the network is key to understanding what to tweak and where," said James E. O'Donnell, manager of data networking technical support, TDS TELECOM. "Before we added NetScout's application-aware probes, we could rarely pinpoint where the slowdowns were occurring or why. Our goal by the end of 2001 is to fully benchmark our applications ahead of time using NetScout technology so we can better predict how they'll behave in a true production network. We are now managing by fact, not inference."

"We are extremely pleased to be supporting TDS' objectives to ensure high performance of its emerging, applications-driven services to customers and to be complementing its growth strategy through increased efficiency of the infrastructure," said Anil Singhal, chairman and CEO, NetScout Systems. "NetScout's technology is precisely aimed at ensuring the performance of the infrastructure and its delivery of applications, content and services -- all key factors to competitiveness and profitability within the enterprise and service provider communities."

TDS TELECOM formed a relationship with Cisco Systems when designing its critical wide area network for connecting point of presence phone companies and carriers. As part of its comprehensive solution, Cisco chose NetScout to evaluate and recommend an appropriate solution for proactively managing the performance of TDS TELECOM's mix of high-end and data centric enterprise applications. Using data collected by NetScout's hardware probes in concert with Cisco Systems' RWAN Management Solution, TDS TELECOM is able to establish bandwidth benchmarks for its proprietary applications to ensure the existing production network is not disrupted by untested applications. The resulting solution supplies TDS TELECOM with a system-wide infrastructure of dedicated instrumentation and reporting products for monitoring and managing network and applications performance.

"NetScout products support our commitment to delivering comprehensive, end-to-end networking solutions for the enterprise, e-business and emerging markets," said John McCormack, director, Cisco Systems, Inc. "We are pleased with the joint technology development between our two companies and NetScout continues to be an important provider of solutions for a wide reach of Cisco environments."

About TDS Telecom

TDS TELECOM is a growing, national company that brings high quality, locally-based telecommunications services to 900 rural and suburban communities across the U.S. Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, the company, along with its subsidiaries TDS METROCOM and USLink, maintains 681,909 access lines and serves more than one million customers. TDS TELECOM can be accessed through the Internet at www.tdstelecom.com. TDS TELECOM is part of the Telephone and Data Systems (TDS) family of companies. TDS is a diversified telecommunications corporation founded in 1969. Through its strategic business units, U.S. Cellular and TDS TELECOM, TDS operates primarily by providing cellular and local telephone service. TDS builds value for its shareholders by providing excellent communications services in growing, closely related segments of the telecommunications industry. The company currently employs over 8,000 people and serves nearly 3.5 million customers in 35 states.

About NetScout Systems

NetScout Systems, Inc. is the leading provider of infrastructure performance management solutions for leading companies and service providers worldwide. NetScout serves approximately half of the Fortune 500 and counts among its customers 3M Corporation, AT&T, Datek Online, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Amazon.com, Webhire, Intel Online, Fidelity Investments and Sun Microsystems.

NetScout's nGenius (TM) Performance Management System is a solutions-based system offering advanced monitoring and reporting applications suites that draw on the rich performance data generated by NetScout's real-time, application-aware probe suite, advanced intelligent software agents, and network devices. The nGenius System helps organizations increase their return on infrastructure investments by optimizing the performance of their network, applications and content. NetScout is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts and has approximately 320 employees, with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. Further information on the company is available on the World Wide Web at www.netscout.com

NetScout is a registered trademark, and the NetScout logo, nGenius, nGenius Application Service Level Manager, nGenius Real-Time Monitor, nGenius Capacity Planner are trademarks of NetScout Systems, Inc.