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

To: Gary Korn who wrote (1166)	2/11/1998 10:46:00 AM
From: Duke	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 1629

Ascend Opens Technical Assistance Center for Asia-Pacific Region MELBOURNE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 1998--Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) a world leader in remote access, central site and carrier core switching systems and products, has established a large Technical Assistance Centre (TAC) to provide second- and third-level post-sales technical support to Ascend's distribution channel, VARs, OEMs, ISPs, corporate accounts, and Carriers in 21 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The new TAC complex -- based in Melbourne, Australia -- was officially opened on February 5. Ascend Communications' Asia-Pacific Region Director Tony Wise said, "With Ascend's remote access, central site and core backbone switching systems sales growing rapidly over the past 12 months in the Asia-Pacific region, this new TAC is very timely for our customers and business partners." The new complex will have realtime links with Ascend's TAC at the company's head offices in Alameda, Calif. and the Ascend European TAC based at Sophia Antipolis in the South of France. "By linking Ascend's TAC complexes throughout the world, our customers and business partners with contract coverage will have 24-hour realtime access to the highest level of technical expertise and support possible -- regardless of where they are located," he added. Asia-Pacific Director of Support for Ascend Communications, Rick Sample, will head the new Australian-based TAC. Sample stated that Ascend's Global Technical Assistance facilities have been developed to provide Ascend's partners and clients with a consistent high quality post sales support team: "Rather than diluting expertise on a country by country basis, it makes sound practical and business sense to concentrate skills and resources so that every user, no matter where they're based, has access to the highest level of technical expertise and support. "Current telecommunications infrastructure makes it possible for resources to be concentrated in our Asia Pacific TAC, and fully accessible to all users, with each country having access to the cumulative skills of our multilingual support team." Sample added, "We will be using an advanced tracking system tool (Scopus) to provide customers with quicker response times for high-level technical queries and our call reporting services enables all enquiries to be logged and monitored from any location on the network. Additionally, our customers will be able to automatically access the most common queries and their solutions through the automated services." About Ascend Communications Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufactures sells and services 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. Phone 800/ASCEND4; Fax 510/747-2300. CONTACT: Ascend Communications Eric Warren, 510/747-6683 eric.warren@ascend.com KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA BW1061 FEB 11,1998

To: Gary Korn who wrote (1166)	2/11/1998 2:36:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 1629

Some large contracts might be forthcoming for TNT, TNT II w/ VOIP (Voice-over-IP) from PSINet, AT&T, CLECs. I will provide details as they unfold over the next few months.

To: Gary Korn who wrote (1166)	2/12/1998 7:18:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1629

You are correct that AT&T uses mostly Stratacom BPX's for their frame relay network. They aren't changing that to my knowledge. But for sure, they have now settled on Ascend/Cascade for ATM. And ATM is where the new AT&T investment is targeted. They're pretty much done with their frame relay cloud. It would have made sense for them to continue using Stratacom for their ATM, since they already have so much Cisco in their network. This would have made support and operation of their network so much easier. But for some reason, they chose Cascade/Ascend over Cisco. I think that alone shows the superiority of Cascade over Stratacom. It is proof that Cascade/Ascend is really taking away business from Cisco. Wigblast, remember that Cisco really wanted to buy Cascade, but then had to settle for Stratacom. The Cascade switches are not junk. They are the most advanced and reliable data switches available on the market today. And I believe they're also putting a crimp into Newbridge's plans. I believe the $30M contract is only the beginning. Much more ATM investment planned from AT&T to the year 2001. Expect follow-on contracts for GX550 and support. AT&T is getting very aggressive here. The $$ from the AT&T contract will not start coming in till the 2nd half of 1998. I think ASND will be much higher by that time than it is today, in anticipation of revenues from this contract and Wiltel, and other CLEC's. Long term, this contract really gives ASND (or their acquirer) the credibility that they need to compete directly with Cisco. I think Chambers is really worried about ASND and their future acquirer. Cisco should have had this contract. There is no excuse for losing this one. They had all of AT&T's frame relay business, and they lost the ATM to Cascade. And ATM is where the growth and future is. Eventually Frame Relay will start to decline and perhaps become like X.25 is today (well, it will probably continue to be used, but in increasingly niche applications). [Posted for bucky89]