Paradyne Opens High-Margin DSL Market to Fortune 1000 Businesses Who Demand Higher Speeds At Lower Costs

Business Wire, Sept 12, 2000

Business Editors

LARGO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2000

Paradyne's Total Business DSL Solution is the Industry's First

to Support the Complete Conventional WAN Services Requirement,

While Dramatically Reducing Access Costs

Paradyne Networks Inc. (Nasdaq:PDYN) today announced its Total Business DSL solution that enables inter-exchange carriers (IXCs) and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) to gain independence from LEC's central offices and begin deriving high-margin DSL-based services to Fortune 1000 business for the first time.

Paradyne's comprehensive approach to services, market coverage and management provides IXCs and their large enterprise business customer base with the industry's first viable alternative to using conventional leased lines from an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC).

"Paradyne has held a steady vision that DSL would become the next generation of access networks to serve our heritage Fortune 1000 customer base," said Paradyne's President and COO Sean Belanger. "With our new Total Business DSL capability, our Hotwire(R) network service provider customers can leverage a combined DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer) service coverage with more than three million ports of capacity to serve the full spectrum of business and residential customers."

The Total Business DSL solution, which will include both currently available products and future enhancements, will enable the delivery of IP, frame relay, ATM, TDM and POTS services for voice, video and data. The services are all delivered via ATM to the endpoint, which is then converted and presented to the enterprise end-user as the same service type they're familiar with.

The new solution includes the full ATM Quality of Service attributes necessary to support a variety of service classes to meet the requirements of both the IXCs and their Fortune 1000 business customers.

While these ATM-based services will be delivered to most locations via DSL transport, the few locations that cannot be served via DSL will be served via T1 through the Hotwire GranDSLAM. Support for T1 in addition to DSL is essential to assure ubiquitous service coverage of all the enterprise's locations.

Paradyne is also extending its existing line of enterprise class T1, T3 and DDS access products to include DSL, enabling the ability to have the same type of CPE (customer premises equipment) products across hybrid networks with some locations served via conventional access lines and others via DSL.

Paradyne's Total Business DSL solution includes unmatched Service Level Management tools that are already widely deployed by the major IXCs for whom the solution was developed, including Broadwing, Intermedia Communications, SBC, Sprint, Verizon and Worldcom. A fundamental differentiator between Paradyne's Total Business DSL solution and conventional "small-business Internet access DSL" systems is management connectivity and control.

IXCs demand consistent, reliable management visibility, control and reporting to assure they are delivering the service quality their customers have come to expect. Paradyne's support for Total Business DSL includes support of a Carrier-class Management Portal, which ensures reliable management even when data services are down. Management visibility and control is available to the IXCs, their CLEC partners and even the end-user enterprise customers.

"Today's announcement is significant because Paradyne is opening the DSL door to the wide area networking business services market, which is in excess of $20 billion annually," said Frank Wiener, Paradyne's vice president of Broadband Access Solutions. "Prior to this capability, DSL was largely relegated to the margin challenged residential and small-business Internet access services. Finally, DSL service providers, IXCs and end users all have something to cheer about - because they all stand to win big!"

ABOUT PARADYNE

Paradyne is a leading developer of carrier-class high-speed network access solutions. A recognized market-share leader in DSL and Service Level Management solutions, the company markets its award-winning Hotwire DSL and FrameSaver(R) Service Level Management systems to service providers and business customers. Paradyne's Hotwire Connected(TM) program accelerates DSL deployment by facilitating system-level interoperability and manageability. More than 10,500 Hotwire DSL Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) have currently shipped, for a total capacity of more than 3 million lines.

Paradyne is headquartered in the Tampa Bay area. More information is available by calling 1-800-PARADYNE (U.S. and Canada), 1-727-530-8623 or visiting www.paradyne.com. A corporate video is available at http://www.paradyne.com/corpview. (Requires Real Player)

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Paradyne Corporation's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1999 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.