STRATACOM DELIVERS NEW FOUNDATION FOR SCALABLE ATM AND MULTIMEDIA
APPLICATIONS

First WAN Switch Supplier to Deliver ATM SVCs and Advanced ATM Security
Features

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA -- JANUARY 2, 1996 -- To address increasing user
requirements for more robust ATM networks, StrataCom today announced the
availability and full support of high performance switched virtual circuit
(SVC) switching to automate connection set-up and configuration. ATM SVCs
provide three key benefits for carriers and end users: scalability,
flexibility and ease of use. StrataCom expects to commence beta-testing of
ATM SVCs with select customers in the first quarter of this year.

In addition, StrataCom unveiled the industry's first set of ATM signaling
and security features that give users more flexibility and unprecedented
levels of control across their ATM wide area networks. These new features
give companies the ability to prevent unauthorized access among users.

STRATACOM ATM SVCS: FEATURES AND BENEFITS

Available as a system software upgrade, StrataCom's ATM SVCs will support
ATM user-to-network (UNI) interfaces ranging from T1/E1 (1.544/2.0 Mbps)
and T3/E3 (45/34 Mbps) to OC-3/STM-1 (155 Mbps). StrataCom ATM SVC
signaling also includes compliance with both ATM UNI 3.0 and 3.1 with
translation between these standards.

The company also said it will support ATM SVC signaling for ATM Frame UNI
(FUNI) and ATM Inverse Multiplexed (AIMUX) interfaces with the delivery of
these products in the first quarter of 1996. StrataCom also announced
support for the Interim Inter-Switch Signaling Protocol (IISP) which
provides interoperability with other vendor's ATM switches and the Interim
Local Management Interface (ILMI) protocol for ATM connection management.

"Unlike frame relay, ATM is widely viewed as the underlying transport
technology for multiple services - making ATM SVCs fundamental in
supporting large numbers of users and high volumes of traffic," said
Andrew Greenfield, group manager of ATM Market Development for StrataCom.
"Even more, SVCs are the foundation for several new ATM-based services
such as LAN interworking over ATM using LAN Emulation and Multi-Protocol
Over ATM (MPOA) standards. These services will require the ability to
rapidly establish and tear-down large numbers of connections."

While permanent virtual circuits or PVCs must be pre-established and
manually configured, SVCs make use of ATM signaling information within
each ATM cell allowing connections to be automatically set up on- demand
by switches as ATM calls are requested by the user.

ATM SVCs provide an ideal foundation for multimedia applications. While
router architectures aggregate many users' traffic, the use of ATM SVCs
permits a separate connection for each pair of users and each application.
This allows quality of service guarantees which are essential for
multimedia communications.

Though PVCs remain attractive for customers with a limited number of
interconnected devices, as many more users come online - as is evidenced
by the growth of the Internet - SVCs become a critical requirement. SVCs
significantly reduce network administration by eliminating manual
configuration of connections while increasing the flexibility by which
devices can be added to the network providing quicker connectivity to all
other devices.

Greenfield commented that the company is working on enhancements designed
to scale SVC capacity per switch to support millions of concurrent SVC
connections and thousands of SVC call set-ups per second.

NEW ATM SECURITY FEATURES

Through the use of address screening (source and destination), customers
will now be able to specify, by port, a list of ATM addresses from which
users are allowed (or not allowed) to receive or initiate SVC calls. This
feature will become a mandatory requirement in public networking
environments where large numbers of users from different companies are
connected into the same ATM service having access to all other ATM
connected devices. StrataCom will also implement additional ATM security
mechanisms specified by the ATM Forum's new Security Working Group.

STRATACOM

StrataCom, Inc. (NASD:STRM), based in San Jose, California, USA, develops,
delivers and supports FastPacket networking systems for ATM applications
in private wide area networks and public carrier servicer offerings, such
as frame relay and ATM. StrataCom's family of products, including IPX",
IGX, BPX, AXIS, FastPAD, and EdgeConnect, is used to integrate and
transport a wide variety of corporate information, including voice, data,
video, LANs, image and multimedia traffic in narrowband to broadband ATM
network applications.

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Contacts:
David Callisch                                      Barbara Burdick
PR Manager                               Director, Public Relations
StrataCom                                                 StrataCom
(408) 882-2521                                       (408) 494-2003
dcallisch@strata.com                            bburdick@strata.com
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