Mpower to Acquire ICG's California Customers, Network

Mpower Communications will acquire ICG Communications' network assets and customers in California for $13.5 million in stock. The deal includes ICG's California retail and wholesale customers; a 1,412 route mile state-wide self-healing DWDM and SONET-based fiber ring connecting San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Diego, Anaheim and Los Angeles; 915 route miles of fully-survivable metropolitan SONET-based fiber rings in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles which connect 128 commercial buildings, 33 of Mpower's existing collocations and 11 ICG collocations that will be added to the Mpower footprint. The acquisition is expected to contribute in excess of $30 million in revenue and $8-$10 million of operating income (excluding expenses related to depreciation and amortization of the acquired assets) in 2006.



In connection with the acquisition, Mpower also announced that telecom investment funds Columbia Capital and M/C Venture Partners, through their ownership of ICG, will invest $2.5 million in cash for 1,988,894 shares of Mpower Holding's common stock. http://www.mpowercom.com

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ADC to Sell Metrica Service Assurance Software Platform

ADC will sell its Metrica service assurance software group to WatchMark Corp. for $35 million in cash and 3.2 million shares of WatchMark common stock, which represents less than five percent ownership of WatchMark. The Metrica service assurance software group, which has about 250 employees, provides solutions to help service providers improve service quality, lower operational costs and optimize network usage and capacity. The applications include Metrica Performance Manager, which provides a complete view of network quality and usage; Metrica Service Manager, which enables the delivery of new services to drive growth; Metrica Service Assurance Framework, a modular and open framework that ensures Metrica solutions support innovation and competitive differentiation; and Metrica/NPR, which allows users to manage data from multiple vendors and forecast performance trends. In the first three quarters of ADC's fiscal year, Nov. 1, 2003 - July 31, 2004, Metrica sales were approximately $21 million with an operating loss of approximately $2 million, after direct expenses only. In ADC's fiscal year ended October 31, 2003, Metrica generated sales of approximately $30 million and an operating income of approximately $5 million, after direct expenses only.



Watchmark, which is based in Bellevue, Washington, provides wireless service providers with software tools necessary to deploy and monitor services at the network, application and customer levels.



ADC said the sale will enable it to focus on its core strengths as a global network infrastructure company. http://www.adc.com

• In June 2004, ADC agreed to sell its customer care and billing software division to Intec Telecom Systems, a supplier of Operations Support Systems (OSS) for fixed, mobile and next-generation networks, for $74.5 million in cash. Intec will assume control of ADC's customer care and billing software offerings including approximately 600 employees, current relationships with existing software customers and related facility space. ADC's customer care and billing software platforms include Singl.eView, a complete revenue, transaction, billing and service management solution that resides at the core of the OSS and business support systems (BSS).



• In May 2004, ADC sold its IP Cable Business Unit to BigBand Networksfor an undisclosed sum. ADC will become a minority interest holder in BigBand Networks as part of the agreement. The acquisition does not include the Homeworx cable telephony system that had also been a part of the business unit. ADC's Cuda CMTS (cable modem termination system) is a widely deployed and carrier-class platform for switching and routing of advanced IP services, and the FastFlow Broadband Provisioning Manager is a server suite that activates and configures such services.



• In March 2004, ADC agreed to acquire the KRONE Group, a global supplier of copper- and fiber-based cabling products, from GenTek Inc.. The deal was valued at approximately $350 million, of which ADC will pay cash of approximately $291 million and assume certain defined liabilities consisting principally of KRONE's pension obligation for its German workforce.

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Siemens Invests in Chinese start-up Zero Global

Siemens Mobile Acceleration has made an equity investment in Zero Global,a Shanghai-based start-up that specializes in mobile enterprise software. Zero Global is developint technology that enables sales force, marketers and service groups to access Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) as well as Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM) while on the road. Siemens Mobile Acceleration is the only investor in the first round of funding. http://www.siemensmobileacceleration.com

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Xten Surpasses 500,000 Softphone

Xten Networks has surpassed the 500,000 installation milestone for its SIP Softphone client. The company also announced the release of a new eyeBeam SIP softphone for MAC OS Xhttp://www.xten.com

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First HyperTransport 2.0 Products Enter Market

The first wave of HyperTransport Specification 2.0 compliant devices have started to enter the market, eight months after the specification was released.



HyperTransport Specification 2.0 is a chip-to-chip interconnect technology offering performance levels of up to 2.8 Gigatransfers/second and mapping to PCI Express. Products conforming to HyperTransport Specification 2.0 support up to 22.4 Gigabytes/second aggregate bandwidth. The new products include HyperTransport-enabled 64-bit processors, I/O chipsets, silicon IP, and development tools. http://www.hypertransport.org

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Nextel Adds 550,000 Subscribers in Q3, ARPU at $69

Nextel Communications ended Q3 with approximately 15.3 million total subscribers including 14.5 million Nextel subscribers and 800,000 Boost Mobile subscribers. During the quarter, Nextel added 550,000 new subscribers, average revenue per user (ARPU) was $69 and customer satisfaction improved as churn was reduced to 1.5%. In addition, Boost Mobile added 195,000 subscribers during the third quarter.



Nextel reported Q3 revenue of $3.40 billion, up 18% from last year's third-quarter revenue. Operating income before depreciation and amortization was $1.32 billion, up 17% from last year's third-quarter. Third-quarter 2004 income was $586 million, or $0.53 per share, up from last year's third-quarter income of $346 million, or $0.33 per share.



"Nextel is experiencing strong demand for its wireless services across all sectors and especially higher growth in government, high-end individuals and our Boost Mobile business," said Tim Donahue, Nextel's president and CEO. http://www.nextel.com

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HomeNet Selects NetCentrex VoIP for iProvo

HomeNet Communications, a full-service Triple Play Provider, selected the NetCentrex platform to deliver VoIP services to HomeNet's iProvo subscribers. iProvo is an open, municipally-owned fiber to the home (FTTH) initiative in Provo, Utah. HomeNet Communications was selected as iProvo's first service provider. After the initial iProvo win, HomeNet Communications and NetCentrex anticipate expanding to other broadband markets by hosting telephony services for additional FTTH markets. http://www.netcentrex.net

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