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Ascend Announces Major Milestone in Deployment of K56flex
Business Wire - December 02, 1997 07:59
%ASCEND-COMMUNICATIONS ASND %CALIFORNIA %COMPUTERS %ELECTRONICS %COMED %TELECOMMUNICATIONS %INTERACTIVE %MULTIMEDIA %INTERNET %PRODUCT V%BW P%BW
ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 1997--
Ascend Deploys 1.5 million K56flex Ports; Exceeds Deployment of
Competing Technology Ports by 50 Percent
Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) today announced that it has now deployed more than 1.5 million K56flex ports worldwide. This is 50 percent more than the estimated one million ports deployed by the next leading competing technology. The Ascend deployment represents more than 4,000 live POPs (Points of Presence) by 500 Internet Service Providers that service over 3,600 cities and approximately 20 million subscribers.
"K56flex has gained an overwhelming lead as the 56Kbps technology of choice and is attracting more adherents all the time," according to Bob Machlin, Ascend's vice president of marketing. "In the past few weeks both GTE/BBN and UUNet, the major Internet backbone providers, have begun using Ascend equipment to deliver K56flex service across their networks. Major consumer ISP customers of these backbone providers, including Microsoft Network, America Online, GTE Interface, Epoch Internet and Earthlink, have also announced that they now support K56flex. And many modem manufacturers during the past few months have reported a strong increase in sales of K56flex modems connecting end users to these networks."
With the announcement of support from GTE and UUNet, K56flex deployment has reached a major milestone in North America. According to the BoardWatch Magazine fall 1997 directory of ISPs, of the 1,728 ISPs then offering 56Kbps service, a majority, or 969 ISPs, support K56flex, compared to 759 that support other technologies. And a soon-to-be released ISP survey by the magazine found that 16.6 percent of North American ISPs offer K56flex technology, compared to 14 percent that offer x2 technology and 5.7 percent that offer both. Internationally, K56flex is also in the midst of a major deployment. By year-end, K56flex will be capable of supporting the majority of worldwide subscriber demand for high-speed analog access to the Internet and corporate networks.
"Our experience corroborates industry estimates that the total number of ISPs supporting K56flex and the number of ports deployed exceeds the installed base of competing technologies," according to Raouf Halim, vice president and general manager for Rockwell Semiconductor's Network Access Division, Newport Beach, Calif., which makes K56flex chipsets. "To date, millions of K56flex product has been shipped to the leading central site equipment suppliers, including Ascend, which together hold 70 percent of the market for Internet access equipment."
Ascend alone has shipped 1.7 million of these ports to its ISP customers to date; 1.5 million are activated and the rest are in the process of being activated and verified. Collectively, K56flex shipments now exceed by a ratio of two-to-one shipments of the next leading technology and by the end of the year K56flex will account for nearly three times as many live ports.
Ascend, Rockwell, and other vendors that support K56flex also support the work toward the ITU 56K standard which is expected by the end of 1998, and will provide software upgrades to the standard when it is finalized. "When you combine its widespread proliferation with its easy software upgrade path to expected ITU standards, K56flex gives Internet subscribers the confidence of a higher speed Web browsing solution today that will also carry them safely into the future," said Halim.
"In May 1997 Epoch Internet, a founding member of the Open 56K Forum, became the first Internet Service Provider in the nation to offer its customers full 56 Kbps Internet access via the company's nationwide backbone," said Brad Hall, director of network engineering, Epoch Internet. "We partnered with Ascend early on so we could offer our customers high-speed analog access to the Internet and because we strongly believed that the K56flex technology would become the industry de facto."
With some 62.2 percent market share in ISDN PRI and 33.6 percent market share in T1 access shipments, Ascend's MAX WAN access concentrator remains the POP solution of choice among the ISP community, according to Kurt Bauer, vice president, access product management at Ascend. "It is not widely understood that the trunk side of the POP needs to be digital to enable 56K service," Bauer said. "Because our ISP customers have the largest installed base of T1 and PRI digital carrier lines, Ascend and the entire K56Flex alliance allow immediate 56Kbps provisioning."
About Ascend
Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufactures and sells wide area networking solutions for telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers and corporate customers worldwide. For more information about Ascend and its products, please visit the Ascend web site at www.ascend.com, or send e-mail to info@ascend.com . Ascend is headquartered at One Ascend Plaza, 1701 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda Calif. 94502-3002. Phone 800/ASCEND4; Fax 510/747-2300.
Modem Vendors See Rapid Growth in K56flex Sales
ALAMEDA, Calif.--Dec. 2, 1997--Simultaneously with the announcement today of the large-scale deployment of K56flex ports by Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND), modem vendors reported their support for the K56flex technology and rapid growth in K56flex sales.
"We've seen over a 300 percent increase in K56flex sales through our partners during the last 90 days. We attribute this directly to the fast growth of K56flex central site deployment and to rapid consumer acceptance of this technology." -- Bruce Zaman, President, Best Data Products, Inc.
Contact: Paul Goldberg, 818/773-9600, ext. 164 paul@bestdata.com
"We at TDK are excited by the performance and availability of K56flex. With the rapid growth in Internet access we are committed to K56flex as the technology that will be the dominant player in the 56K race." -- Bill Harris, Product Marketing Manager, TDK Systems, Inc.
Contact: Bill Harris, 916/478-8275 bharris@sierra.tsi.tdk.com
"As the only modem vendor in the world to offer both K56flex and X2 products, we are finding that our K56flex products are outselling the competition 20-to-1. It is clear that K56flex has gathered steam, due in large measure to the efforts of Ascend and its ISP partners." -- Marshall Toplansky, Vice President, Marketing, Hayes Microcomputer Systems, Inc.
Contact: Marshall Toplansky mtoplansky@hayes.com
"The significant increase in deployment of K56flex, which Ascend is reporting, is reflected in our numbers. During the month of October, we experienced a significant up-tick in 56K orders, and this trend is continuing with November's shipments. These positive signs indicate that consumers are gaining confidence in the deployment of ISPs. As the number of ISPs offering K56flex connections increases, consumers are increasingly demanding the high-speed modems for Internet access." -- Tony Zalenski, President and CEO, Boca Research
Contact: Gale Blackburn, 561/997-6227, ext. 305 galeb@bocaresearch.com
"Customers continually demand faster Internet access for surfing the web and downloading the increasingly multimedia-intensive graphics, video and audio found on the World Wide Web. With 56K technology, consumers and small businesses can achieve speeds that will allow them to significantly enhance their internet experience and overall productivity." -- Jim Cady, Vice President and General Manager, Diamond Multimedia, Communications Division
Contact: Kerry Verbanic, 360/604-1456 kerryv@diamondmm.com
"Zoom has developed a broad line of award-winning K56flex products for many countries worldwide. We have felt all along that K56flex would be the most popular pre-standard 56K approach, given its support by Rockwell, Lucent, Compaq and other leading computer manufacturers, and the top central site manufacturers. With recent widespread service roll-out by American Online, Bell South, Earthlink, Erols, GTE, Microsoft Network, UUNet and many others, we are seeing a surge in sell-through of K56flex at retail and intense excitement by our sales team and market channel partners." -- Frank Manning, President, Zoom Telephonics, Inc.
Contact: Ray Zamagni, 617/753-0585 rayz@zoomtel.com
CONTACT: Gallagher PR
Kevin Gallagher, 510/743-7830
kevin@gpr.com
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