ADC Telecommunications and Seren Innovations Sign Contract for ADC's Homeworx Cable Telephony System

Business Wire, August 2, 1999

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 2, 1999--

Project Estimated at $40 Million Will Enable Seren to Offer

HFC Telephony Service to Customers in California and Minnesota

ADC Telecommunications, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADCT) (www.adc.com) today announced that Seren Innovations, Inc., a subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Company (NYSE:NSP), has awarded ADC a contract for the Homeworx(TM) cable telephony system.

The new contract covers the initial twelve months of product deployments and is expected to be extended for additional years to meet deployment demands. The complete three-year project schedule is valued at $40 million in cable telephony equipment.

The deployment of the Homeworx platform will allow Seren to deliver advanced telephony services to residential and business customers to more than 15 cities in California and Minnesota. Seren's aggressive deployment plans call for expanded hybrid/fiber coax (HFC) services in Minnesota and the introduction of HFC services in California later this year. Over the past few months, ADC has provided Homeworx telephony equipment for Seren's HFC network in St. Cloud, Waite Park, Sauk Rapids and Sartell, Minnesota.

"As we enter this new market, it is vital to select a reliable system with the proven ability to deliver carrier grade telephone service today, as well as the flexibility to later offer our customers advanced services from the same platform," said Glynis Hinschberger, chief executive officer of Seren Innovations. "The Homeworx system, coupled with ADC's outstanding support, met our demands."

"As more companies begin to deploy cable telephony services over HFC networks, it is critical that they work with established manufacturers who are capable and knowledgeable of both HFC deployments and telecom systems. They must have the means to fully support the provider's planning and network deployment," said Claude Romans, director for Loop Access at Ryan Hankin Kent, a San Francisco-based telecommunications industry analysis firm. "ADC has established itself as one of the significant players in this market with both the technology and organizational depth to support cable-based communications service providers."

ADC's Homeworx system is the industry's most complete HFC telephony platform, providing the most reliable and highest capacity system currently available. The Homeworx system uniquely offers service providers more capacity than other available solutions by supporting up to six times the telephony traffic per 6 Mhz channel of bandwidth. The system also provides superior performance against HFC impairments such as group delay, multipath distortion, ingress noise, and narrowband interference, ensuring maximum reliability of the HFC network. The system accommodates delivery of current services such as telephony and Internet connections, while providing flexible expansion capability for future service upgrades.

"I am very excited and pleased that Seren has chosen the Homeworx platform," said Arun Sobti, president of ADC's Residential Broadband Group. "We have worked in partnership with Seren over the past several months as they entered the telephony market, and we look forward to working with them over the coming months as they expand their network availability and service offerings."

ADC Telecommunications, Inc., is a leading global supplier of voice, video and data systems for telephone, cable television, Internet, broadcast, wireless and private communications networks. ADC's systems enable local access and high-speed transmission of communications services from providers to consumers and businesses over fiber-optic, copper, coaxial and wireless media. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ADC has approximately 9,600 employees around the world and annual sales of $1.5 billion. For additional information, visit our Web site at www.adc.com.

Seren Innovations is a non-regulated subsidiary of Northern States Power Company that offers broadband communications services including cable TV, high-speed Internet and local and long-distance telephone under the Astound(SM) brand name. For frequent updates on Astound services, a speed demonstration of Astound Super-fast Internet services or additional information, visit Astound at www.astound.net. For information about Seren Innovations, Inc., visit www.seren.com.