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


To: Maverick who wrote (1320)4/3/1998 4:22:00 PM
From: username  Respond to of 1629
 
Friday, Apr 3 1998 2:42PM EST



UBS Securities Equity Research April 03, 1998

CISCO SYSTEMS (CSCO-OTC) - Buy
CSCO: RIFTS APPEARING IN CISCO-GTE PARTNERSHIP

Business: Networking supplier

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Price: 70.25 Div: Nil Mkt Cap: 77.3b Debt/TC:
Price Tgt: Yld: Nil Shrs O/S: 1.1b ROE: 36%
52wk: 70.25-30.12 5yr Est: 30% BV/Shr: 5.11 LTM OCF:
Cvt Secs: No
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FY QUARTERLY ESTIMATES FISCAL YEAR ESTIMATES
1stQ 2ndQ 3rdQ 4thQ EPS P/E REV(M)
07/97 .31A .34A .35A .37A F97A 1.37 51.3 6440
07/98 .39A .43A .44E .46E F98E 1.72 40.8 8318
07/99 F99E 2.10 33.5 10683

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SUMMARY
We believe that the partnership that Cisco signed last year with GTE is not
going as well as Cisco had anticipated. Based on our research we believe that
Cisco has recently been shut out of two key equipment areas at GTE, WAN
switching and ADSL. In the WAN switching area we believe that Ascend has won a
large contract to supply 200 WAN switches to the CLEC part of GTE. We also
believe that the ILEC part of GTE will continue to purchase Ascend WAN
switches. In the ADSL area we believe that Cisco was beaten out by
Fujitsu/Orckit.

HIGHLIGHTS

* We believe that recently Ascend has won a large order for the CLEC side of
GTE for 200 Ascend 9000s, 500s, and 550s.
* We believe that Ascend is in very good standing for WAN switching on the ILEC
side of GTE and will sell another 10-20 500s throughout the rest of 1998.
* Additionally we believe that Fujitsu/Orckit has beaten out Cisco at GTE for
ADSL deployment

ANALYSIS
We believe that Cisco's partnership with GTE is not going as well as Cisco had
anticipated. Last year Cisco and GTE signed a partnership that stated that GTE
could purchase $1 billion or more from Cisco over 5 years in key product areas
such as WAN switches, routers and dial access platforms. Based on our research
we believe that Cisco has recently been shut out of two key equipment areas at
GTE, WAN switching and ADSL. In the WAN switching area we believe that Ascend
has won a large contract to supply 200 WAN switches to the CLEC part of GTE.
We also believe that the ILEC part of GTE, which is completely separate from
the CLEC side, will continue to purchase Ascend WAN switches. In the ADSL area
we believe that Cisco was beaten out by Fujitsu/Orckit. The dial access
business is not going Cisco's way either, as we believe that Ascend continues
to be the dominant supplier to GTE. We do believe however that Cisco is in
good standing at GTE for routers and is selling the GSR 12008 and 7500.

Ascend Winning WAN Switch Business on Two Fronts at GTE

We believe that Ascend (ASND-39-Hold) has won new WAN switch business at the
CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) part of GTE and continues to sell to
the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) side of GTE. The CLEC side is
GTE's recent entry into the competitive local exchange market and acts
independently of the regulated incumbent LEC business. Based on our research
we believe that within the last few weeks on the CLEC side Ascend has won a
large order for 200 WAN switches including 9000s, 500s and 550s. On the more
established ILEC side, GTE has recently increased the number of Ascend 500s in
its network to somewhere in the teens, and will continue to install an
additional 10 to 20 500s over the course of 1998. (The ILEC side of GTE also
has a large installed base of Newbridge's 36150 Frame Relay switches). On the
ILEC side we believe that Cisco is in very poor position with regard to WAN
switches. Cisco's biggest shortfall is that it lacks good network management
which hampers the ability to easily provision service, an area where Ascend
excels.

Cisco Apparently Loses ADSL Business at GTE as Well

We believe that in addition to the loss in the WAN switching area, Cisco has
lost out on the ADSL business at GTE as well. A couple of weeks ago Cisco
purchased Netspeed, an ADSL start-up. It was generally thought at the time
that the reason Cisco purchased Netspeed was due to Netspeed's strong standing
at a couple of LECs, namely US West and GTE. At US West Cisco/Netspeed is
firmly entrenched as the ADSL supplier. We believe however that at GTE,
Cisco/Netspeed has lost the ADSL business to Fujitsu/Orckit. Yesterday Orckit
stated that it has been selected for a large-scale rollout of ADSL at an
unspecified carrier. We believe that carrier is GTE. It is our understanding
that Fujitsu/Orckit is coming in at very attractive price points which helped
them win the business.

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UBS Securities LLC makes a market in the securities of ASND, and CSCO.