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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications-News Only!!! (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 8:59:00 AM
From: Gary Korn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1629

(COMTEX) Notice of Class Action Ascend Communications Notice of Class Action Ascend Communications NEW YORK (Dec. 3) BUSINESS WIRE -Dec. 3, 1997--Ascend Communications, Inc. (Symbol:ASND) and some of its directors and officers were named as defendants in a class action lawsuit filed in the United States District Court, Central District of California, Civil Action No. 97-8861 MRP (ANx), on behalf of purchasers of the Company's securities between November 5, 1996 through September 30, 1997 (the "Class Period"). The Complaint charges defendants with violating federal securities and state laws, including Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, by engaging in an illegal scheme and deceptive course of conduct designed to inflate Ascend's stock price through positive statements concerning Ascend's business, earnings and its growth prospects, despite the fact that, at the time the statements were made, defendants knew, or recklessly disregarded, but failed to disclose to investors, that sales of Ascend's advanced modem products would all but cease because of, among other things, serious software and firmware problems. The defendants' scheme allowed Ascend's officers and directors to sell their Ascend shares at enormous gains, exceeding $40 million in proceeds. In addition, the defendants' course of conduct allowed Ascend to consummate a merger transaction during the Class Period with Cascade Communications, Inc. by exchanging overvalued Ascend stock for the stock of Cascade. Plaintiffs seek to recover damages on behalf of a class of purchasers of Ascend stock during the Class Period and a sub-class of Cascade shareholders who exchanged their shares for Ascend stock pursuant to the merger. The plaintiffs are represented by Weiss & Yourman and Stull Stull & Brody, law firms having significant experience and expertise prosecuting class actions on behalf of investors and shareholders in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firms maintain offices in New York City and Los Angeles. The firms have repeatedly been appointed by courts as lead counsel in numerous complex litigations and have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of investors. If you are a member of the class described above, you may, not later than sixty (60) days from today, move the court to serve as lead plaintiff of the class, if you so choose. To assure that you will be included in a list of class members, or if you wish to discuss this action, have any questions concerning this notice, or your rights or interests with respect to this matter, or if you have any information you wish to provide to us, please contact David C. Katz by calling toll-free (888) 593-4771, or via Internet electronic mail at wynyc@aol.com or by writing Weiss & Yourman, The French Building, 551 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1600, New York City 10176, or Michael D. Braun by calling toll-free (888) 388-4605, or via Internet electronic mail at Braunatssb@aol.com or by writing Stull Stull & Brody, 10940 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 2300, Los Angeles, CA 90024. -0- al/ny* CONTACT: David C. Katz (888) 593-4771 Internet electronic mail at wynyc@aol.com or Michael D. Braun (888) 388-4605 Internet electronic mail at Braunatssb@aol.com KEYWORD: NEW YORK INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS COMED Today's News On The Net - Business Wire's full file on the Internet with Hyperlinks to your home page. URL: businesswire.com * end of story *

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 7:39:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1629

AT&T to beef up Internet services By Denise Pappalardo Network World, 9/8/97 AT&T plans to upgrade its Accunet IP-based private-line network backbone to ATM in order to support its WorldNet Internet services. Today, AT&T supports its WorldNet consumer dial-up customers on Accunet. But in order to handle the onslaught of its remaining 1,000 to 2,000 business users still on GTE Internetworking's (formerly BBN Planet) Internet backbone, AT&T will deploy ATM switches. The ATM switches, which will be deployed before year-end, will offer higher speed switching and better network performance. The company would not identify the type of ATM switches it will be deploying. The current Accunet network is based on Cisco Systems, Inc.'s 7500 IP routers. By this time next year, all of AT&T WorldNet's Managed In-ternet Service (MIS) business customers will be on the Accunet network. WorldNet MIS users who signed on before May probably are on GTE's network. But since May, AT&T has been putting new MIS users on Accunet. While AT&T's plan was always to bring its business customers onto its own network, the telco giant has been sheepish about what network it would use to support these users (NW, June 16, page 1).

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 7:41:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1629

One of the benefits of AT&T's Accunet network is that it supports automatic circuit restoration. AT&T deploys Fastar, its technology that identifies failures on the network and automatically restores service by rerouting traffic to circuits with spare capacity. While AT&T has offered Fastar to its private-line customers for nearly five years, this same backup service now will be available to AT&T's MIS users. AT&T also contends it will ''soon'' have private peering connections with other na-tional Internet service providers, said Subu Subramanian, director for networking at WorldNet. AT&T is behind its competitors in peering relationships: MCI Commu- nications Corp. has 36, Sprint Corp. has 15, UUNET Technologies has 14 and GTE Internet-working has 12 (NW, Aug. 25, page 12). Today, AT&T has no peering relationships. Private peering lets the ISPs exchange traffic away from the public network access points (NAP), which often are cited as common points of failure on the Internet. Although it lacks private peering agreements, AT&T does peer at five NAPs where it has agreements with many of the national providers to exchange traffic, Subramanian said. But analysts are skeptical. While AT&T has the peoplepower and money to make its Internet business a success, the company's commitment has been weak, said Christopher Mines, senior analyst at Forrester Research, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based consultancy. AT&T needs to prove it is focused on business Internet services and that it is a priority for the overall company, Mines said.

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 8:23:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1629

It's still a multiprotocol world, Bernie By David Rohde Mergers stink, don't they? If you've ever gone through one, you know how the uncertainty and back-room maneuvering rob energy from the customer focus. Yet much of the reaction to the MCI/WorldCom merger is favorable. Is it merited? In one key way it is. The deal pairs the only two large carriers that have shown any real gumption amid the cowardly name-calling wars in the telephone industry. No amount of court rulings throwing telecom reform into legal chaos have stopped WorldCom from continuing to build alternative local networks. MCI's spin doctors have yelled and screamed with the best of them, but to MCI's credit, it finally has given the local market a run for its money. The two together, plus WorldCom's acquisition of Brooks Fiber Properties' networks in second-tier cities, eventually could provide the first national counterweight to the archipelago of monopoly regional Bell operating companies. That's in welcome contrast to AT&T's hypocrisy in failing to attack the local market even while swearing it's trying to (in order to prevent the RBOCs from triggering a rule that allows them to walk into the long-distance business if no one shows up to compete with them). But back in the long-distance business, in which you now might expect a WorldCom vs. AT&T duel, there are troubling questions that actually could leave AT&T with a stronger hand than before. WorldCom's entire history seems to track exactly what services occupy a share of mind inside CEO Bernard Ebbers' head. In the early days, WorldCom's predecessor companies sold cheap long distance via resale. That led Ebbers to discover the power of physical facilities. So he bought and installed switches and fiber and became a big wholesale provider to many other small carriers. He figured the same held true for local markets, so he bought MFS Communications, the king of alternate access facilities. Legend has it that MFS' UUNET subsidiary meant nothing to Ebbers until John Sidgmore explained the Internet to him, so Ebbers became a big believer in IP.

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 8:24:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1629

It's a multi-protocol world, Part II What's missing? As a network manager, you already know: everything else. By all accounts, frame relay has been starved for attention within WorldCom, and it has the drooping market-share figures to show for it. IPX and SNA issues seem to get no hearing in the executive suite. The company seems unable to throw the switch on a simple announcement that it will bundle Racal frame relay access devices with its frame relay service, a step everyone else took with other FRAD vendors long ago. All this while AT&T finally gets its act together on multiprotocol networks, particularly the long-awaited migration from private lines to frame relay to handle legacy and emerging IP applications. The price may be stiff, but by offering everything from dual and backup virtual circuits to choices in bundled and managed services and even applications modeling, AT&T's fast-packet data business is roaring. Will Ebbers sit down and listen when MCI's product managers and customers tell him they have multiple requirements that all must be met at the same time? For their sake and the sake of the merger, let's hope so. Rohde is Network World senior editor of Carriers & ISPs. He can be reached at david˜rohde@nww.com.

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 9:08:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 1629

Trusted Information Systems and Ascend Communications Form Strategic Alliance TIS' Active Security to Integrate With Ascend's Products; TIS to also use Ascend's Pipeline Products with Gauntlet(R) Firewall To Link Remote Users Securely GLENWOOD, Md. and ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 24, 1997-- Trusted Information Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ: TISX - news) and Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: ASND - news) today announced a partnership agreement to bring a new level of security to enterprise networking and remote Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. In one aspect of the partnership, TIS will use Ascend's Firewall Control Protocol (FCP) to develop an Active Response Module (ARM) configuration that can alert Ascend's Pipeline products, equipped with Secure Access Firewall, to anomalies occurring inside the local area network. If an intruder is detected, TIS' misuse detection WebStalker(R) technology notifies the Secure Access Firewall to shut down services at the infiltrated area and alerts appropriate administrators that a breach has occurred. The result will be a more complete solution for customers, allowing them to prevent, detect and respond to a wider variety of unauthorized or malicious activities. This application is among the first in a series of TIS active security applications for the enterprise. It also demonstrates the power of Secure Access Firewall when used with other security solutions. Second, as part of the Gauntlet Advantage Plus (A+) Partner Program, TIS will team with Ascend to bring users a powerful solution for enabling remote VPN-connectivity between Ascend's Pipeline(C) products and Gauntlet network security products. Interoperability of Ascend's and TIS' VPN solutions was proven recently in extensive testing based on the IPSec encryption protocol supported by both companies. This combination will allow branch offices and telecommuters equipped with Ascend's Pipeline products to use the Internet as a secure virtual private network connecting to corporate headquarters with Gauntlet Firewalls. ''We're excited to join forces with Ascend on a number of fronts to implement multi-dimensional security solutions for the enterprise. We're working closely together to integrate our Stalker technology with Ascend's Secure Access products, providing customers with a powerful combination of technology for actively detecting and responding to the range of threats inherent within their networks,'' said Harvey L. Weiss, President of TIS' Commercial Division. ''Simultaneously, our support for IPSec standards gives users confidence that strong encryption will secure their remote communications across multi-vendor VPN connections when using Ascend's Pipeline solution together with Gauntlet network security products.''

To: blankmind who wrote (630)	12/3/1997 9:09:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1629

''We are pleased to work with TIS on their initiative to develop innovations in active security. TIS' newly acquired intrusion and misuse detection technology, combined with support for our Secure Access Firewall, provides unbeatable protection for enabling secure enterprise-wide networking,'' commented Dave Dawson, general manger for Ascend's network security business unit. ''As we continue to embrace IPSec as the encryption standard for establishing cross-vendor VPNs, TIS has a leg-up by ensuring that their Gauntlet VPN products interoperate with the high-end solutions that customers are seeking.'' ''The collaborative work evidenced by these two companies is essential as organizations search for solutions that reach beyond the firewall,'' said Hans Von Braun, senior associate with Creative Strategies Research Intl., based in San Francisco. ''By addressing the important issues of active security and support for encryption standards, Ascend and TIS are moving toward providing a more complete solution for tackling the multitude of security issues facing the networked environment today.'' Trusted Information Systems, Inc. provides comprehensive security solutions for protection of enterprise-wide networks. Focusing on full service security that enables organizations to take advantage of secure networking, TIS develops, markets, licenses and supports the Gauntlet(R) family of network security solutions -- the market leader in application gateway firewalls; RecoverKey(TM) user-controlled key recovery systems; and the Stalker family of intrusion and misuse detection products. TIS products provide multi-dimensional security -- prevention, detection, and response -- for enabling the enterprise to operate securely from the perimeter to the server to the desktop. The Gauntlet Advantage Plus (A+) Program works with select partners to provide users with highly integrated, easy-to-use security solutions for maximizing productivity and minimizing total cost of ownership. TIS performs comprehensive services in the areas of cryptography, security policy management, penetration testing, training, and custom engineering for commercial and government customers. Through TIS' Advanced Research and Engineering (AR&E) initiatives, a constant flow of innovative technology is incorporated into practical IT security applications.