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Big River Telephone Company Chooses Tasman Networks to Ensure Reliable, Cost-Effective Delivery Of High-Performance Converged Services

  Tasman Routers Also Enable Large Midwestern Service Provider to Facilitate
             Customer Migration from Incumbent Carriers' Networks

    SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Tasman Networks, the world's
leading supplier of high-performance, converged services routers, announced
today that Big River Telephone Company is using Tasman products to extend its
Midwest IP network build out. Big River, a full-service telecommunications
provider serving the midwestern United States, chose Tasman routers for their
ability to handle the capacity of converged services simultaneously, with
uncompromising performance as well as their affordability and scalability.
Tasman's routers also enable Big River's customers to migrate from incumbent
carriers' platforms to the company's own network in the wake of last year's
FCC ruling that phases out, over a year, all competitive local exchange
carrier (CLEC) leasing of incumbent carriers' local switching.
    Big River Telephone, which provides service to customers across Arkansas,
Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee, is using Tasman's
full suite of router products  to  deliver converged (voice and data)
services. "Ensuring quality of service to our customers is of vital importance
to us and when evaluating other routers, we determined that Tasman's products
could easily span our wide range of applications from customer premise to
aggregation in the network, without compromising quality," said Kevin Keaveny,
vice president, engineering and operations, Big River Telephone. "We have been
very pleased with both the performance and the affordability of the Tasman
equipment, which we find scales in a cost-effective manner. It offers a rich
feature set that is reliable and allows us the flexibility to service both the
small residential customer as well as the larger network customer."

    FCC UNE-P Ruling Changes Competitive Landcape
    Since 1996 regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) have been forced to
sell CLECs the lines plus room on the RBOCs' associated termination equipment
at attractive prices. In December 2004 the FCC ruled that these so-called
UNE-P services cannot be provided to CLECs after March 2006, establishing a
12-month transition period effective March 2005, when CLECs can convert their
customers to another permanent service arrangement such as resale, UNE-P at
commercially negotiated rates, or UNE-L in combination with the competitor's
own switching facilities. Tasman's converged services routers enable
non-incumbent carriers to migrate from an expensive UNE-P plan to a much more
cost-efficient business model, providing these carriers significant savings
and opportunity for incremental business growth.
    "Tasman's equipment has enabled the migration of significant portions of
our network from legacy TDM or circuit-based network to a more flexible IP
architecture. As we move our customer base from incumbent carrier switches to
our own soft switches -- essentially a UNE-P to a UNE-L [unbundled network
element-loop] configuration -- we can also achieve operational efficiencies in
how we provision services. This improves the overall cost of service
delivery," said Keaveny. "By using Tasman routers at our network POPS [points
of presence] and by configuring the units to support robust quality of
service, we can count on high-quality voice transmission across our network,
from customer to the network core."

    Tasman Products Address Carriers' Needs
    With maximum bandwidth use, full wire-speed performance, and the lowest
latency in its class, Tasman's products are ideal for running
high-performance, high-demand applications like VoIP. Installed in more than
3,500 enterprise environments and in the networks of more than 65 carriers
worldwide, Tasman routers are fully integrated with network services and
include industry-leading features such as a fast path forwarding engine,
multilink bonding, extensive quality of service capabilities, unique "virtual
Ethernet," and robust security capabilities.
    "Service providers are faced with the challenge of delivering more
in-demand services, and non-incumbent carriers in particular are
recapitalizing their own networks to deliver these services in light of the
recent FCC UNE-P ruling," said Paul Smith, CEO and president, Tasman Networks.
"Because Tasman architects its routers from the ground up to seamlessly accept
new services, customers can add services without having to invest in new
equipment down the road. Tasman's extremely cost-effective, high-performance
converged solutions allow non-incumbents like Big River Telephone to migrate
UNE-P-based services to UNE-L-based services by building out their own POP
platforms using Tasman equipment."

    About Big River Telephone
    Big River Telephone Company is a full service telecommunications provider
serving the local needs of Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. With more than 20 years of experience,
the company is one of the oldest competitive telephone providers in the
country and the largest locally owned regional carrier. Based in Cape
Girardeau, Missouri, Big River Telephone provides local, long distance and
international calling, toll free, enhanced data services, wireless, high speed
Internet services, conferencing, consulting services and wholesale voice over
IP (VoIP) services.

    About Tasman Networks
    Tasman Networks delivers scalable, entry-level to mid-range converged
services routers for customers with geographically dispersed operations.
Offering bandwidth ranging from fractional T1 to multiple DS-3s, Tasman
Networks' high-performance, high-availability solutions reduce the cost of
network ownership and improve organizational productivity by providing an
unsurpassed combination of functionality, flexibility, scalability, security,
and simplified management. Tasman routers are installed in more than
3,500 enterprise environments and in the networks of more than 65 carriers
worldwide. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company was founded in
1997 and is privately held. For more information, go to http://www.tasmannetworks.com
or call 408-216-4693.


SOURCE Tasman Networks




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Related links:
  • http://www.tasmannetworks.com
    CONTACT:
    Sabrina Sanchez of Trainer Communications,
    +1-925-875-1968, or tn@trainercomm.com, for Tasman Networks