Ray Van Eng (12/24/96)                     

PRODUCT AD  

In an effort to drive down cost and speed up the deployment of ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services for the public, four major U.S. telephone companies: Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell will make volume purchases of the Alcatel 1000 ADSL equipment based on the adjustable bit rate DMT (discrete multitone) transmission standard.

Alcatel, a Paris, France based company has manufacturing facilities in the U.S. to design and build a full line of telecommunication equipment and system for braodband multimedia services.

the ADSL system which uses existing copper telephone wires that goes into every home and business makes for an attractive way for the telcos to provide high bandwidth data services (such as for Internet success) at speeds up to 200 times as today's 'fast' 28.8 Kbps modems. What's more, the user will still be able to use the same telephone line for voice services to talk with someone (placing an order, or get customer service) while browsing through a company's web site.

The four U.S. telcos all have ADSL services on current trials and their combined purchase would allow them to cost effectively roll out the service to their customers in the next few years. It is expected that the total number of ADSL users will be more than a million people by the year 2001.

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