OTCBB FTEL
For Immediate Release
April 19, 1996
FRANKLIN ANNOUNCES INTERNET DEAL WITH DCI
Westlake Village, CA.> Franklin Telecom announced today that it had signed an
agreement with DCI Telecommunications Inc., a public company (DCIC-OTCBB QTC)
of Fairfield, Connecticut. The agreement calls for DCI to acquire a 50% ownership in
one of Franklin's wholly-owned subsidiaries, called Franklin Datacom, Inc. It is the intent
of both companies to finance the growth of this subsidiary (to be renamed FNet) through
an Initial Public Offering.
FNet is a provider of Internet access, applications and consulting services to
businesses, professionals and on-line Service providers, FNet provides both dedicated
and low cost dial-up Internet access, and other applications and services which include
Web server hosting, the sale of Franklin manufactured communications products to
other Internet Service Providers and soon to be included voice telephone calls over the
Internet free of long-distance charges.
FNet's objective is to be one of the leading suppliers, worldwide to businesses and
professionals of complete communications solutions using Internet-related service and
product technologies. FNet intends to develop this business by acquiring other Internet
service providers, forming strategic business alliances, using existing proprietary
hardware products and developing proprietary software products.
The agreement calls for DCI to secure bridge financing and a lead underwriter for FNet's
Initial Public Offering. The agreement also provides that Franklin Telecom Corp. and DCI
may acquire a 15% "stake-out" interest in each other, subject to certain conditions, with
a view to an eventual merger of the two companies.
Franklin Telecom Corp. , had sales of $1.2 million and $1.4 million for the years ended
June 30, 1994 and June 30, 1995 respectively. DCI Telecommunications whose year
end is March 31, had sales of $100,000 in 1995 and expects to do over $1.0 million in
1996.
DCI Telecommunications Inc. is a communications company which designs, develops
and markets value added cards and manufactures and sells a broad array of data
monitoring systems and acquisition control devices for personal computers.
Frank Peters, Franklin's President & CEO said, "We are coming at the Internet from
quite a different direction than our competition. We will be using Franklin's Channel Bank
& Router manufacturing capability coupled with the strategic alliances we have been
forging to give us a cutting edge in providing exceptional service and operation at a
highly competitive cost to our customers. We should be able to operate our business
below the cost of the competition".
More information can be obtained by contacting Frank Peters or Helen West,
Shareholder Relations at 805-373-8688, 800- 372-6556, by fax at 805-373-7373,
Internet: hq@ftel.com, or on the WEB ftel.com or by writing to Franklin at 733
Lakefield Road, Westlake Village, CA. 91361. Franklin Telecom, founded in 1981,
designs and manufactures communications devices, high speed LAN & WAN access
cards and software. Franklin has an installed base of over 100,000 nodes. Franklin is
traded Over The Counter Market as "FTEL".
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