FREMONT, Calif. -- Ikanos Communications, developer of Smart Silicon for Profitable Broadband(TM), today announced that Discrete Multi-Tone (DMT) is now the worldwide line-coding standard for Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) technology. The IEEE's 802.3ah Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) Task Force selected DMT as its worldwide line-coding standard at its meeting in Ottawa, Canada, this week. Last week T1E1.4 Working Group selected DMT as the VDSL line-coding standard at its quarterly meeting in Anaheim, California. VDSL-DMT offers the highest VDSL performance, up to 150 Mbps, and the longest reach, up to 13,000 feet.

The selection of DMT by both standards bodies paves the way for carriers to expand their broadband footprint around the world. With their equipment suppliers now designing to a single standard, carriers will have more flexibility, buying power, and choice. A Single standard also helps carriers ensure network interoperability.

VDSL-DMT deployments have already begun in Asia (Editor's Note: See the announcement on June 18, 2003 titled, "Korea Telecom Delivers 50 Mbps VDSL Services"). Services enabled by VDSL-DMT include Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) Extension; Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Extension, which is particularly strong in Japan; the triple-play services include voice, video, HDTV, and data from both the Central Office (CO) and Remote Terminal (RT); and Multi-Tenant/Multi-Dwelling Unit (MxU) services.

"The IEEE and T1E1.4's selection of DMT as the only standard for VDSL is a turning point for the telecommunications industry," said Rajesh Vashist, president and CEO of Ikanos. "Suddenly the bandwidth available over existing copper infrastructure jumps from a few megabits to over 100 Mbps. Carriers can take advantage of that bandwidth to create powerful new services and applications that will allow them to generate significant new revenue streams. Consumers will benefit from increased competition, as carriers vie to serve them with a host of new high-speed service options."

Since production quantities of its VDSL-DMT chipsets became available in Q4 of 2002, Ikanos has shipped more than 500,000 ports. The company's high-performance SmartLeap(TM) VDSL-DMT chipset is the first to support all international VDSL-DMT standards for Europe, Asia and North America, as well as ATM and Ethernet protocols, in a single chipset. The company's SmartLeap(TM) 8800 A/VDSL chipset is the first to support ADSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+, and VDSL-DMT standards complying with ETSI, ANSI, and ITU-T standards. Equipment vendors use the Ikanos chipsets to develop end-to-end solutions for the Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) and Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Extensions, Multi-Tenant/Multi-Dwelling Unit (MxU), and Central Office/Remote Terminal (CO/RT) markets, while slashing time to market and lowering development, manufacturing, and inventory costs.

Equipment vendors around the world have designed products using Ikanos programmable chipsets, including Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI), NEC, Samsung, Hyundai Networks, Dasan Networks, Inc., Woojyun Systec, Millinet, and Marconi.

Ikanos Communications Inc.