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IPTV Growth Drives FASTWEB’s Major Network Upgrade with Cisco

MILAN, Italy, Month Date, Year –– Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), today announced that FASTWEB S.p.A, Italy’s second largest fixed telecommunications services provider, has chosen Cisco Internet Protocol Next Generation Network (IP NGN) technology to deliver significant enhancements to its national network. The upgrade project, implemented by Cisco partnerstrategic alliance artner, Italtel, will expand FASTWEB’s national network capacity and enhance quality of service capabilities in order to support the rising demand for standard- and high-definition video services and the continuing growth of its consumer and business customer base. FASTWEB reported 80 per cent year-on-year growth in its customer base to 957,300 subscribers in September.

“The Cisco IP NGN architecture with its modular upgrade capability fits very well with our business approach of bringing continuous improvement and innovation to our customers, whilst maintaining strong financial performance for our investors,” said Guido Roda, ICT Services Director at FASTWEB. “Our customers value the quality of our broadband services and the experience and expertise that Cisco brings is helping us to maintain our excellent reputation in this area.”

FASTWEB was the first operator in the world to develop an IP-based telecommunications network offering voice, data and video over the same high-speed connection using a combination of fibre-to-the-home / fibre-to-the-business (FTTH / FTTB) and digital subscriber line (DSL) networks. FASTWEB offers an extensive range of consumer and business services including voice and video telephony, 20Mbps+ broadband Internet connectivity, virtual private networks (VPN), audio and video streaming, tele-surveillance, digital and interactive TV and Video-on-Demand services. It boasts one of the highest average revenues per household in the European telecommunications industry and the highest EBITDA margins amongst recently established alternative carriers.

“FASTWEB was the first operator to fully embrace IP and have shared the same vision as Cisco of multiple services and applications delivered over a single, highly efficient next-generation network,” said Gianmatteo Manghi, challengers service provider director, Cisco Italy. “The continuing success and growth of FASTWEB is the best proof we have of the power of the network as an ideal platform for business, entertainment and communications.”

FASTWEB is upgrading the Cisco 12000 Series Routers installed at its core points of presence (PoPs) from 2.5 Gbps to 10 Gbps capacity links. It is also deploying a new range of Cisco I-Flex modular shared port adapters (SPAs) and SPA interface processors (SIPs) for the Cisco 12000 Series and 7600 Series Routers. The Cisco SPA/SIP portfolio offers a rich set of QoS features for premium service delivery.

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