Tiscali France selects Transmode transmission equipment for backhaul of national DSL rollout

August 9, 2004 Stockholm--Transmode Systems AB, a supplier of transmission equipment for fiberoptic networks, and ARCHE, the French system integrator, announced today that they have been selected by Tiscali France to support the rollout of unbundled DSL services in several major urban areas across the country.

The contract was won through Transmode's system integrator partner in France, ARCHE. ARCHE, part of the Omnetica group, is a system integrator for telecommunications solutions and has been Transmode's partner since November 2003.

Tiscali is France's second largest Internet service provider and its third largest provider of residential DSL services. Transmode's System 1100 WDM platform will be used to backhaul residential broadband traffic over Gigabit Ethernet from Tiscali DSLAM locations to central hubs. In the first phase of the contract, due for completion by the end of August 2004, Transmode equipment will be installed in more than hundred locations across 20 fiber rings. Further rings will be added during 2005 as part of Tiscali's continuing rollout of DSL services across France.

"We chose Transmode's solution because it offered the best balance between functionality, price and modularity," commented M. Rostagni, backbone manager of Tiscali France. "Transmode's leading-edge technology and competitive pricing, together with the organizational strength of ARCHE as its system integrator partner, proved to the winning combination we were looking for to support our DSL rollout plans."

"We are delighted to have been awarded this contract from Tiscali," says Frank Segers, Transmode's vice president of Channel Sales. "Working together with both ARCHE and Tiscali, our engineers came up with a highly innovative solution for backhauling Gigabit Ethernet traffic over CWDM rings, allowing Tiscali to optimize wavelength usage across the rings for greatly enhanced capacity and reach. DSL backhauling is proving to be a key application for our System 1100 platform across Europe, particularly as local loop unbundling continues to gather pace."

"The maturity of our offer and Transmode's level of response were two major assets in order to convince Tiscali," says Eric HUS, ARCHE's sales engineer.

"As of the first discussions, we were able to understand and address Tiscali France's network requirements, and to meet its technical and economical objectives," says Laurent Flavenot, ARCHE's carrier sales director.