Newbridge Networks Provides Industry's Most Cost-Effective Integrated Management for Premium Quality IP-VPN Services.

HAMBURG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 13, 1999--

TELEMANAGEMENT WORLD - Siemens / Newbridge MainStreetXpress(tm) 46020 Network Manager Extends Multiservice Management to Premium IP-VPN Services

Newbridge Networks (NYSE: NN; TSE: NNC) today announced that it has strengthened the management capabilities of the MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager, its industry-leading, carrier class multiservice management platform, to support premium quality business Internet protocol (IP) virtual private network (VPN) services. The MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager provides full management capabilities to the Newbridge(r) Carrier Switched Routing solution, based on the Carrier Scale Internetworking (CSI) approach. It contributes significantly to reducing both service provider operations costs and total cost of ownership (TCO).

"The complexity and costs associated with delivering IP services is one of the key challenges facing service providers today," said TeleManagement Forum chairman Keith Willetts. "Service providers are looking for network and service management capabilities from suppliers like Newbridge that will allow the deployment of fully managed, premium quality IP-VPN services that will dramatically lower their total cost ofownership."

"The MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager provides unique network partitioning and policy-based management of IP-VPN services - key attributes in reducing complexity and total cost of ownership while deploying differentiated managed services," said Vish Raju, Assistant Vice President, Service Management Systems, Newbridge Networks. "These features help service providers maximize the utilization of their network assets while providing customers with enforceable service-level guarantees."

A recently published study by leading industry analyst firm the Yankee Group polled prominent IP-VPN service providers and found that the CSI approach reduces TCO by 14 percent and operations costs by 37 percent to provide the most cost-effective carrier-based IP-VPN solution available. The study found that operations costs - the fully loaded cost of the service provider staff that installs, manages and maintains the network - are the biggest concern to service providers and therefore a key differentiator in their choice of an IP-VPN solution. The MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager, with its centralized policy creation and distribution capabilities, is the core management component of CSI.

"Operations costs account for up to 38 percent of the total cost of ownership associated with networks that service providers use to deliver IP-VPN services. As such, addressing these costs is of primary importance to service providers," said Eric Hindin, Director of Network Solutions, the Yankee Group. "The CSI approach addresses all the tasks that carriers say contribute the most to operational costs. It is also unique in that it significantly eases the burdens associated with device configuration. By reducing service provider workload, CSI allows carriers to roll out services and enhancements faster and ensure performance and functionality."

Newbridge Carrier Switched Routing, based on CSI, leverages a standards-based, multiservice asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) infrastructure to deliver IP-VPN services that allow customer isolation and differentiated classes of service. Carrier Switched Routing interoperates with multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and other standard routing protocols to provide end-to-end class of service transport for IP-based services. A key component of the Newbridge Carrier Switched Routing solution, the MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager extends its unique network partitioning and integrated ATM, frame relay, and time division multiplexing (TDM) provisioning capabilities to premium IP-VPNs. The MainStreetXpress 46020 solution enables service providers to assign customers to bridged virtual local area networks (LANs) or routed virtual subnets and then associate centrally defined IP configuration policies and classes of service with these VPNs. These policies automatically forward to the switched routing network's distributed components, greatly simplifying IP-VPN service provisioning and management. Unlike conventional routing-based solutions that require independent configuration changes on all devices in the VPN, the MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager adds new access points and changes class of service through a single operational command.

Service providers can also create virtual connections between the IP-VPN routing core and the customer premises using ATM, frame relay or TDM connectivity and a wide range of last mile technologies, such as digital subscriber line (xDSL), broadband wireless and conditioned copper or fiber. By integrating centralized IP-VPN policy creation capability with multiservice management, the MainStreetXpress 46020 solution provides a single point of control for integrated Layer 2, Layer 3 and multi-access networks.

The MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager's unique network partitioning and operator profiling capabilities combine the economies of scale of a shared network infrastructure with the flexibility of a private network to provide highly granular control over network resource assignment and operator actions. Even individual ports can be shared, with guaranteed quality of service (QoS), between customer IP-VPNs.

Customers can be provided with monitoring and control capabilities over their VPNs, allowing them to proactively escalate and resolve network problems and monitor service level agreements (SLAs). The MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager combines customer partitioning with the statistics and accounting data collection infrastructure to accommodate a broad range of performance reporting and usage-based billing applications.

CSI was introduced by Newbridge, Siemens and 3Com in 1997. It is an open, standards-based solutions framework that enables service providers to deliver scalable, reliable and easy to manage IP VPNs over a multiservice ATM infrastructure. Components of the solution have been formally included by the ATM Forum as part of several of its standards.

Newbridge is a long-standing, active member of the Telemanagement Forum - a global consortium of service providers and suppliers that provides leadership to the telecom industry on the most effective ways to improve the management of public networks and services in today's competitive global market.

The Newbridge network and service management portfolio will be demonstrated at TeleManagement World in Hamburg, Germany April 13-15, 1999.

Newbridge Networks designs, manufactures, markets and services networking solutions to organizations in more than 100 countries. The Company leverages its relationship with a growing family of Affiliate companies and strategic alliances with Siemens and 3Com Corporation to deliver seamless, end-to-end solutions. Newbridge customers include the world's 300 largest telecommunications service providers and more than 10,000 corporations, government organizations and other institutions. Founded in 1986, the Company employs more than 6,000 people on six continents. News and information are available at www.newbridge.com.

Newbridge and logo are registered trademarks of Newbridge Networks Corporation.

MainStreetXpress is a trademark used by the Siemens / Newbridge alliance for comprehensive solutions in broadband communication. No agency relationship, partnership, or joint ownership of a legal entity is to be inferred or implied by the use of the term alliance.