Cincinnati Bell selects Cascade's interworking solution to enable premier commercial availability of Frame Relay-to-ATM Interworking Service; B-STDX multiservice switch allows Cincinnati Bell to meet user's increasing demand for high-speed economical networking services

Business Wire, Jan 29, 1996

WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 29, 1996-- Cascade Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:CSCC) today announced that the B-STDX original multiservice switch has been selected by Cincinnati Bell Telephone to provide a Frame Relay-to-ATM Interworking service. This development establishes Cincinnati Bell Telephone as one of the first to offer commercially available services based on this breakthrough technology.

Initially deployed in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, the new service will provide Cincinnati Bell Telephone customers with increased network speed at low cost by allowing customers to leverage next-generation ATM technology without upgrading their network equipment. Cincinnati Bell's premier service allows customers to use Frame Relay to aggregate lower speed traffic on diverse LANs and WANs. Frame Relay also provides the interface for seamless interoperability with Cincinnati Bell's core ATM network, delivering high performance and Quality of Service features to mainstream customers.

Cincinnati Bell Telephone initiated the Frame Relay-to-ATM Interworking service to support large organizations with numerous branch offices, such as banks and hospitals. With the increasing demand for wide area LAN interconnection and transport of delay-sensitive data applications, these organizations need high performance network services to support business growth objectives.

"Our customers needed high-speed networking options so we deployed ATM. However, cost became a critical factor as the customer moved to extend high performance and interoperability to their branch offices," said Jeff Strasser, senior product manager of data services at Cincinnati Bell. "Cascade's Interworking solution enables us to address critical technology requirements and has further enabled us to provide our customers with an average cost savings of 25% on large networks, a figure consistent with the industry average."

"Cascade was a clear choice for Cincinnati Bell, making it easy for us to offer competitively priced, high speed network services," said Lance Reid, senior design engineer for Cincinnati Bell. "The Cascade B-STDX's low cost per port, combined with its superior scalability, allows us to provide one of the fastest networks at low costs to our customers. Cascade's rapid provisioning capabilities further enabled us to implement our Frame Relay services in only six weeks."

Cascade delivers a peerless WAN switch system optimized for Interworking, blending past, present and future network requirements on an open switch platform. The 16-slot, fully redundant switch provides the highest scalability in the industry by a factor of thousands, enabling companies to easily and cost-effectively expand their network on a single platform as requirements dictate.

"Our relationship with Cincinnati Bell is an illustration of Cascade's commitment to provide carriers with the solutions that their customers require and another affirmation of Cascade's industry leading capabilities," said Daniel E. Smith, president and CEO of Cascade. "We are proud that Cascade's B-STDX switches have been selected as a key component of Cincinnati Bell's future growth strategy."

Cincinnati Bell Telephone provides modern telecommunications products and services in a three-state area including portions of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The company has 874,000 access lines in an area covering more than 2,400 square miles. Cincinnati Bell Telephone is a subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell Inc. (NYSE:CSN).

One of the world's fastest growing data communications companies and price/performance leader in frame relay, Cascade Communications of Westford, Mass. is a global provider of wide area networking products for the enterprise and public carrier network markets. The pioneer of multiservice WAN switches, Cascade delivers enterprise-ready switches and network management solutions that enable customers to seamlessly integrate existing technologies with ATM for cost-effective network expansion and investment protection. Cascade's STDX and B-STDX multiservice WAN switches and the recently introduced Cascade 500 ATM switch offer the highest scalability and network capacity in the industry. Worldwide, private and public networks such as BellSouth, Bridge Information Systems, GTE, Pacific Bell, US West, LDDS WorldCom, and British Telecom rely on Cascade products for unparalleled quality of service and high-performance WAN services.

CONTACT: Neva Group, Inc.

Maureen Liberty/Patty Anderson, 617-441-4000

or

Cascade Communications

Lucia Graziano, 508-692-2600

or

Cascade Investor Relations

508-692-2600, Ext. 2552

or

Cincinnati Bell

Jeff Strasser, 513-684-8917