ASSIA Experts Agree Vectored DSL Is the Right Path for Australia and Key to Affordable Plan for 100 Mbps

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 8, 2013) - ASSIA, Inc., a leading solutions company for broadband service providers, today applauded the proposal in Australia to use vectored DSL to bring 100 Mbps quickly to nearly all Australians. ASSIA experts invented vectoring about 10 years ago amid industry skepticism that the technology would ever achieve the high speeds promised. In the past two years, however, field trials and early deployments are delivering on that promise.

"Broadband technology has advanced considerably since the National Broadband Network plan was conceived in 2008, and DSL offers a powerful alternative that can actually bring more bandwidth into a neighborhood than GPON fiber and at 10 percent to 20 percent of the cost," said Dr. John Cioffi, ASSIA Chairman and CEO. "ASSIA continues to develop solutions, including advanced wireless network capabilities, to allow customers to take advantage of high speeds quickly and at modest cost."

Today, service providers around the world are planning or implementing vectoring, and as momentum continues to grow, vectoring stands to augment DSL's position worldwide as the leading residential fixed-access technology. ASSIA's pioneering work in this field has led to several examples of vectoring's impressive DSL performance gains, and significant improvements in the consumer broadband experience:

• September 14, 2012: Deutsche Telekom announced plans to deploy vectoring to help double its super-fast broadband connections from 12 million to 24 million households by 2016. Two months later, Deutsche Telekom reported, "As a result of vectoring, households can enjoy download transmission speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s -- that's double the present speed of VDSL. Vectoring offers upload speeds of up to 40 Mbit/s. Telekom has announced that it wants to invest about EUR 6 billion [to] enable 24 million households." A cost of EUR 6 billion for 24 million homes equates to $350/home.
• Josh Taylor of ZDNET Australia reports that Britain also will begin vectoring in 2013. He quotes BT's Mike Galvin, "Fibre to the cabinet [and DSL for the last mile] is considerably cheaper. It varies from site to site, but in brownfields, it is typically four times cheaper, maybe even more, [than fibre to the home]."
• November 7, 2012: AT&T announced that it plans to expand by more than one-third its high-speed U-verse network, which combines fiber with vectored VDSL, to a total potential of 33 million homes over the next three years as part of a $14 billion capital investment plan. AT&T also plans to increase downstream Internet speeds to up to 75 Mbps with the expanded U-verse network.
• May 10, 2011: Dutch operator KPN announced on its investor day that it planned to implement vectoring in the second half of 2012.
• September 29, 2011: Belgacom announced that it would pave the way for next-generation broadband in Europe, with the world's first commercial introduction of VDSL2 vectoring.
• September 29, 2011: Total Telecom wrote that Europe is a prime market for vectored VDSL, and cited vectoring tests in France, the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, and Italy.

Vectored DSL uses the existing copper for the connection to the home, avoiding the expensive disruption of digging through streets and lawns. Each neighborhood has a fiber-fed node, often as small as a pizza box on the pole or in a cabinet. Eliminating the construction to the home brings the cost down dramatically and also allows much quicker deployment. ZDNet's Taylor reports British Telecom is deploying 100,000 homes per week. Deutsche Telekom plans to deploy 24 million homes in four years.

Dr. Cioffi, also a Stanford Professor Emeritus, and George Ginis, ASSIA Vice President of Product Management, are the original inventors of vectoring technology and related dynamic spectrum management software now implemented by leading broadband service providers worldwide. ASSIA Expresse Solutions combine the company's powerful DSL Expresse software with professional services and best practices to help service providers address the key business and network challenges they face today, including increased consumer demand for high-speed broadband.

About ASSIA, Inc.
ASSIA, Inc. is a strategic partner and trusted solutions vendor to broadband service providers worldwide. ASSIA solutions enable providers to grow revenues, increase customer satisfaction, improve operational efficiencies, and deliver new multimedia content to the broadband-enabled home. ASSIA has more than 60 million broadband lines under contract with top-tier service providers worldwide and is backed by strategic investors, including AT&T, Mingly China Growth Fund, SFR Development, Sandalwood Partners, Sofinnova Partners, Stanford University, Swisscom Ventures, T-Ventures, and Telefonica. For more information, visit www.assia-inc.com.

Expresse is a registered trademark of ASSIA, Inc.

"ASSIA" is an acronym for "adaptive spectrum and signal alignment."

Note to Editors: A full factsheet is available with additional sources. For more information on broadband and wireless technologies from the experts, ASSIA has a Rapid Response Team available to provide you with answers quickly. Contact Julie Jervis, jjervis@assia-inc.com +1-650-264-2630 or Todd Lane, ASSIA@trainercomm.com, +1-415-225-3397 for details.