Time Warner Cable Selects RAD Data Communications for TDM Service Delivery over Metro Ethernet.

MAHWAH, N.J. -- TDMoIP Pseudowire Provides a Complete Solution for Customers Seeking to Migrate to Metro Ethernet Transport

RAD Data Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Cable, a division of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) have announced the deployment of RAD's TDMoIP(R) pseudowire technology as part of Time Warner Cable's rapidly growing metro Ethernet service offering in their Houston, Texas market.

RAD's IPmux(TM) family of TDMoIP gateways enable customers to take advantage of Time Warner Cable's economical and reliable Ethernet services while providing integrated support for existing TDM services over the same Ethernet transport network. RAD's IPmux family supports TDMoIP pseudowires -- the ability to transparently transport TDM circuits such as T1 and T3 across Ethernet, IP or MPLS networks. RAD is the global leader in pseudowire solutions with over 30,000 ports shipped over the past several years.

With thousands of miles of fiber deployed for their private network in Texas, Time Warner Cable had the vision to build a high-speed metro Ethernet solution, providing customers with an attractive alternative to incumbent local access service providers. "We likely have the largest contiguous and completely independent fiber network in the metro space servicing enterprise and carrier customers -- we're completely independent of Bell facilities and span the geography currently served by at least five separate ILECs here in the Houston metropolitan area," said Chuck Sweeney, VP of Business Solutions for Time Warner Cable-Houston.

The Need To Support Legacy Services

It became apparent that despite the huge demand for Ethernet to support existing and emerging IP applications, many customers still require T1 and T3 interfaces to support legacy TDM equipment. As a result, Time Warner Cable undertook a formal process to evaluate various pseudowire solutions and to select a provider to support TDM-over-Ethernet across the Time Warner Cable Metro Ethernet network.

According to Mr. Sweeney, "We decided we needed to do a vendor bake-off and to perform a formal network trial. We had to make sure the vendor we buy from is financially stable, that they have adequate support capabilities, and that we could count on them to support our customer applications over the long term. We also wanted a provider that can service other Time Warner Cable technology needs." Following exhaustive laboratory testing with multiple vendor solutions, and a subsequent three-month, live, on-network trial, RAD's IPmux was ultimately selected for deployment in Time Warner Cable's network to support customer pseudowire applications. "The success of the trial has made a large impact on our revenue forecast for the coming years," said Mr. Sweeney.

Cellular Backhaul

One of Time Warner Cable's first customers for integrated Ethernet and TDM access was a large, nationwide cellular telephone provider. Since the costs for backhauling traffic from cell towers to Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs) accounts for a large percentage of operators' ongoing costs, there is a high demand for efficient, cost-effective solutions. The majority of existing cellular towers use "2G" technology that typically require T1 circuits for backhaul.

Time Warner Cable saw the potential of offering low-cost Ethernet connections to the cellular operators in their region. With the Time Warner Cable service, operators have access to high bandwidth, low latency Ethernet connections for tower-to-MSC connectivity and use RAD's IPmux pseudowire solution to transport the TDM traffic across the same Ethernet link. Cellular traffic is extremely sensitive to latency and packet loss. RAD's IPmux leads the industry with ASIC-based performance ensuring very low latency with jitter buffers starting at 0.5ms and adaptive clock recovery accurate to within 16 parts per billion. The link redundancy feature helps provide Time Warner Cable's customers with rapid failover and reliable TDM transport.

The Key to Success

As many providers rush into the market to deliver Ethernet services, some question how they will differentiate themselves. Working with RAD, Time Warner Cable has successfully positioned themselves as a strategic partner to their customers, not simply a vendor of bandwidth. "What we've been able to do is give our customers a path to fully migrate them to the long term advantages of Ethernet without requiring then to acquire any new skill sets or headcount within their organizations. We gave them a complete solution that addressed all their requirements," concluded Mr. Sweeney.

About Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable is Houston's leading cable communications company with approximately 730,000 customers in the Houston metro area. The company has built its reputation on providing customers with 24-hour local service, a vast variety of entertainment choices including local programming of special interest, and a satisfaction guarantee. Time Warner Cable has invested approximately $350 million in its Houston-area network to bring customers state-of-the-art services such as digital cable, high-speed Internet service and HDTV. Time Warner Cable is a division of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), the world's first Internet-powered media and communications company, whose industry-leading businesses include interactive services, cable systems, publishing, music, TV networks and filmed entertainment.

About RAD

Established in 1981, privately owned RAD Data Communications has achieved international recognition as a major manufacturer of high quality access equipment for data communications and telecommunications applications. These solutions serve the data and voice access requirements of service providers, incumbent and new carriers, and enterprise networks, by reducing infrastructure investment costs while boosting competitiveness and profitability. The company's installed base exceeds 9,000,000 units and includes more than 150 carriers and operators around the world. These customers are supported by 23 RAD offices and more than 200 distributors in 105 countries.

RAD is a member of the RAD Group of companies, a world leader in networking and internetworking product solutions.

RAD Data Communications sites: www.rad.com and www.tdmoip.com