Now Shipping - Patton's EFM Equipment for Carriers and Enterprises

GAITHERSBURG, Maryland, December 14 - Patton — the leader in business and carrier-class VoIP, network access,
connectivity, and video surveillance equipment — is now shipping the
RocketLink(TM) Model 3202 G.SHDSL Ethernet-in-the-First-Mile (EFM) modem for
carriers, service providers and enterprises.

Since Patton began taking orders in September, numerous service providers
have been installing the RocketLink(TM) EFM CPE on customer premises in order
to quickly and cost-effectively roll out profitable broadband Ethernet
services to businesses, governments, schools and other organizations.

"Inquiries are coming from all sorts of customers," said Johnnie Grant,
EFM product manager at Patton, "from clean transmission environments — like
business LAN extension — to noisy railway car applications."

During the past two months, the Maryland-based manufacturer has seen a
steady and growing interest in the product.

"It preserves capital investment," Grant adds. "With Patton's EFM modem,
operators can use the infrastructure they already have to deliver new,
revenue-generating services."

By leveraging pre-installed bundles of twisted-pair cable to deliver
first-mile broadband network access, Patton's EFM Network Termination Unit
(NTU) eliminates the trouble and expense of installing fiber-optic cable.

"Service providers like the 3202," Grant explains, "because they can
offer premium high-speed symmetrical data services to customers they couldn't
reach with older G.SHDSL equipment."

Using Ethernet-over-SHDSL (EoSHDSL), The RocketLink(TM) 3202 extends
connections up to 1.6 miles/2.6km at symmetrical nx64 rates up to 22.8 Mbps.
The device employs EFM Bonding to combine up to four copper pairs (eight
wires) into a single communications channel.

"Today's carriers are eager to connect business customers to their metro
networks," Grant observes, "and EFM is the key standard that makes this
migration easier. ADSL2 is an inexpensive long-reach technology, but it's
asymmetrical. VDSL2 is blazing fast but has very limited distances,
especially in symmetrical configurations."

Patton's model 3202 G.SHDSL.bis EFM (also known as 2Base-TL) CPE is
compliant with ITU-T G.991.2 and IEEE 802.3ah and offers the reliability of
Ethernet connectivity with unmatched rate and reach.

Grant continues, "Patton's G.SHDSL EFM is the ideal gap filler. It
enables carriers to expand their service offerings. EFM enables
standardization and Ethernet penetration into the access networks. Eventually
EFM will eliminate non-native transport methods such as Ethernet over ATM."

With an on-board four-port fast-Ethernet switch with QoS, CoS and VLAN
(802.1q), the RocketLink(TM) 3202 supports four levels of traffic priorities,
flow control and rate control.

Chris Christner, Patton, +1-301-975-1000, Ext. 109