Stoke Readies for 'Year of Offload' as Mobile Carriers Seek Solutions to Handle Data Glut

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - January 27, 2009) - Mobile broadband gateway developer Stoke has noted a substantial increase in sales momentum as carriers look for solutions to meet escalating customer demand for mobile data services at a time when delivery infrastructure costs are soaring and budgets are flat or declining.

Faced with economic pressures that prevent wholesale upgrades in infrastructure, carriers are currently looking to accommodate customer demand by offloading Internet-bound traffic away from their private networks and onto public IP networks, as close to the user as possible. Solutions enabling mobile broadband providers to take traffic off the macro network include the adoption of femtocell technology, seamless inter-working between HSPA/WiFi dual mode devices, and mobile broadband gateways that support smart inspection/deflection of Internet bound traffic.

In this environment, Stoke has seen a significant uptick in sales of its Stoke Session Exchange (SSX) gateways during Q3 and Q4, 2008. Stoke's gateways meet many of the demands of today's mobile broadband market for flexibility, capacity and cost-efficiency. The Stoke SSX-3000 offers an exponential increase in session density over alternative gateways, capable of aggregating up to 240,000 femtocell access points in a compact 5RU form factor. In tests with major carriers in Asia and Europe, the SSX has been proven to perform at approximately one-tenth the cost per bit of comparable solutions.

Vikash Varma, chief executive officer at Stoke, said, "We are convinced that the 2009 priority for Mobile Network providers is to reduce the cost per bit of mobile data and off-load internet bound traffic as quickly as possible to allow them to support the surge in demand -- without engaging in a full-scale infrastructure upgrade. Demand for data is difficult to predict as usage patterns are not well understood, unlike voice traffic capacity, which can be determined based on the number of subscribers. The day of LTE will come, but it is a capital-intensive upgrade strategy for the Mobile Broadband Network operators. We believe the economic downturn has pushed widespread implementation of LTE years further out.

"Our strategy has been crafted to take advantage of changing market dynamics where mobile broadband issues have been largely defined by the need to control costs," added Varma. "In 2008, we re-engineered our solutions to offer industry-leading density and offload capabilities for converged networks. We recognized that operators will resist closed vendor solutions in favor of economy and scalability. Nowhere will this be more evident than in the femtocell space."

"The goal of 4G wireless networks is that high speed data networking should be available to mobile users anywhere, any time," commented Peter Fetterolf, Principal Analyst at Network Strategy Partners, LLC. "Even though the world economy is sliding into recession, demand for data services has not slowed down and the amount of network infrastructure required to deliver these services continues to increase. The economics of replacing the current 3G network infrastructure to support mobile data services are simply not feasible today. In the absence of capital investment needed to deliver 4G, other alternatives to optimize the current network investments are being seriously considered by the Mobile Broadband service provider community. "

About Stoke

Stoke develops carrier-class mobile broadband gateways specifically engineered to enable mobile and converged network operators to maximize the economic returns of their 3G mobile networks. For more information, visit http://www.stoke.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Mary McEvoy Carroll Email: tel: 408 691 4283