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ZyXEL Ships Industry's First ADSL Router with PPPoE Support

New Prestige 641 Provides Standards-Based Interoperable Solution for SOHO Broadband Internet Access

Hsinchu, Taiwan, November 9, 1999 - ZyXEL Communications Corp., a leading supplier of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) customer premises equipment (CPE), today announced volume shipment of world's first ADSL router to support PPP over Ethernet protocol (PPPoE). With ZyXEL's new Prestige 641 ADSL router, SOHO customers will be offered a high-speed, high-bandwidth access solution to the Internet.

ZyXEL's Prestige 641 represents the industry's first router to support PPPoE (RFC 2516). This unparalleled design enables multiple PPP sessions over a single PVC (Permanent Virtual Channel), which helps auto-provisioning of ADSL through broadband remote access servers (BRAS) easily connecting to the existing dial-up RAS Internet infrastructure. Furthermore, the Prestige 641 also supports Multiple Protocol over ATM (RFC 1483) and Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) over ATM AAL5 (RFC 2364).

Ultra-Fast Internet Access
Targeting SOHO users, ZyXEL's Prestige 641 provides a broadband Internet access solution via a built-in ADSL modem. Users can enjoy fast transmission speeds of up to 8Mbps downstream and up to 640kbps upstream over an ordinary telephone line, which is 140 times faster than a typical 56K dial-up modem. The ultra-high transmission rate makes the Prestige 641 ideal for high-speed access to the Internet or bandwidth consuming applications such as videoconferencing and distance learning. To support this amazing high speed, the Prestige 641 follows industry standard Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT) T1.413 Issue 2, and has been designed to be compatible with the forthcoming G.lite standard through a free firmware upgrade.

Interoperablity
Following the industry standards and adopting integrated chipset solution from Alcatel, ZyXEL's Prestige 641 is fully compliant with any standard Central Office (CO) equipment, such as Alcatel's ASAM 1000 and Lucent's Stinger DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplex). The Prestige 641 is currently evaluated by worldwide leading Telecoms and ISPs, and has won good evaluation and acclaims.

Commitment to Price Performance
Featuring ZyXEL's Single User Account (SUA) technology, the industry's first implementation of Network Address Translation (NAT), the Prestige 641 permits an unlimited number of users to access the Internet while subscribing to only a single IP address as well as supports applications such as NetMeeting, CUSeeMe, IRC, RealPlayer, and ICQ. Furthermore, the new Prestige 641 is equipped with an auto-sensing 10/100M Ethernet LAN port which significantly improves the performance of local area networking. Office with 100Mbps networks or plans to upgrade to 100Mbps networks will find ZyXEL's Prestige 641 an ideal solution.

Ease of installation and Management
The Prestige 641 supports a range of network management and ease of installation tools. ZyXEL's Windows-based Prestige Network Commander (PNC) provides a friendly GUI which simplifies initial installation and configuration, as well as a line status examination. Combined with the built-in Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP), the GUI also enables advanced users and systems administrators to easily download firmware updates and configuration backup or restore.

The ability to act both as a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server and DHCP client enables the Prestige 641 to automatically assign IP addresses to client stations logging onto a TCP/IP network, or get IP addresses from a DHCP server in a remote site (such as an ISP) as well. Through a menu-driven user interface, the Prestige 641 can be managed either locally or remotely via a Telnet connection.

Security
In response to increasing emphasis on tight security, the Prestige 641 features a password-protected System Management Terminal (SMT), Password Authentication Protocol (PAP), as well as Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP- where the user's ID and password will be dynamically encrypted before being transmitted to the server for verification). In addition, packet filtering provides controlled access to and from a network, discarding undesired network traffic.

About ZyXEL Communications
ZyXEL Communications Corporation, located in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is a leading supplier of broadband Internet access devices, routers, ISDN terminal adapters, and high performance modems. The firm provides complete networking access solutions for Internet/Intranet/VPN/Extranet applications, and also provides networking service solutions in the design, implementation and maintenance of networks for small- to medium-sized businesses. ZyXEL is listed on the stock market, with distributors in over 70 countries, servicing customers in over 150 countries spanning all seven continents.

NOTE TO EDITORS: The Prestige 641 Photo can be downloaded from
http://www.zyxel.com/html/support/download/graphic.html