Equant Partner ASTEL Improves Network Connectivity And Saves On Bandwidth Costs With Expand

Business Wire, Jan 18, 2002

Business/High Tech Editors

ROSELAND, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 18, 2002

Enterprise Caching Reduces Traffic Splashes During Peak Business

Hours and Increases Revenues For Kazakhstan's Largest Independent

Telecommunications Carrier

Expand Networks, a leader in bandwidth optimization, today announced that ASTEL, one of the largest independent telecommunications carriers in the Republic of Kazakhstan, has successfully deployed Expand's Enterprise Caching Technology to accommodate the expansion of its IP network and provide its customers with faster Internet connectivity.

This resulted in tremendous cost savings for ASTEL, as they did not have to incur expenses on additional bandwidth costs in order to handle high traffic volume during peak hours.

ASTEL, in partnership with the leading world telecommunications network Equant-Global One (a member of the France Telecom Group) consortium that provides data communication services worldwide, offers a full spectrum of telecommunications services tailored to meet the needs of individuals and small businesses, government agencies and large corporations.

ASTEL, whose customers include some of Kazakhstan's largest and international banks (ABN AMRO Bank, HSBC, KAZCOMMERCBANK and others); Government and Ministries of Republic of Kazakhstan, large local and international corporations (IBM, Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, Siemens and others); mass media, offers comprehensive services ranging from bank telecommunications solutions, data transfers, message transmissions, telephony, corporate network integration, and customer technical support.

"In a region like Kazakhstan it is critical to provide accessible and affordable networking solutions. By deploying Enterprise Caching, we've been able to dramatically improve quality of data connectivity for our clients without compromising the service quality our customers have learned from Global One," said Vladimir Breusov, President of JSC ASTEL. "The easy and quick to deploy ACCELERATORs allowed us to address our bandwidth expansion needs by effectively reducing traffic splashes during peak business hours. This is a more cost-effective alternative to purchasing additional bandwidth from our Telco provider. We can now support more customers with less bandwidth consumed."

Enterprise Caching is an application-independent technology that focuses on increasing network capacity available to all enterprise applications: IP, non-IP, web, and non-web. Deployed in over 150 customers worldwide, Enterprise Caching operates on all network traffic on both ends of the Wide Area Network (WAN) - central as well as remote sites. Repeat data patterns are removed from the network with important bandwidth savings. Network capacity, throughput and speed increase by an average of 100 to 400 percent, which translates to average payback periods between 6 and 12 months.

"Network connectivity is one of the most important challenges facing businesses in rapidly growing markets like Kazakhstan. With Expand's Enterprise Caching, service providers like ASTEL can get more for less, by squeezing more bandwidth out of their existing infrastructure. This is a significant value-add that ASTEL can use to improve revenue streams while maintaining operating costs at a minimum," said Zohar Pearl, CEO, Expand Networks.

About Expand Networks

Expand Networks pioneered the development of Enterprise Caching Technology which increases network speed, capacity and throughput by 100 to 400 percent or more. Expand Networks offers a reliable, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy solution to the strain created on networks by mission-critical applications such as Intranet, Extranet, B2B, ERP, CRM, Thin Client and the Web. By accelerating the deployment of new services and applications and offering sophisticated monitoring and management capabilities, Expand Networks improves the end-user experience and reduces the Total Cost of Ownership. Clients include leading organizations such as Motorola, Texas Instruments and the United States Department of Defense. Expand Networks is headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey and Tel Aviv, Israel with offices throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom, France and Italy. The company's sales force is augmented by a global network of Value Added Resellers. To learn more, visit www.expand.com or call (888) 892-1250.

Expand Networks, ACCELERATOR 4000 and ACCELERATOR 2750 are trademarks of Expand Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About ASTEL

ASTEL is one of the largest and rapidly developing telecommunications carriers in Kazakhstan. ASTEL's mission is to provide a full spectrum of the high quality telecommunications services while forming long-term partnerships with its customers. Established in March 1993, ASTEL built the first public data communications network carrier in Kazakhstan and is today, its largest independent telecommunications carrier. Please visit www.astel.net for more information on ASTEL.