CAIS Internet to Become Ardent Communications Upon Shareholder Approval - New Name to Reflect Company's Renewed Focus on Offering Tier-One Converged Data Communications Services to Businesses Nationwide
CAIS Internet, Inc.
"There are only a few nationwide independent services providers that can boast of a data network of this size and flexibility," said Michael Lee, President and CEO of CAIS Internet. "We wanted a new name that accurately conveys the brand qualities we value: Ardent Communications reflects our strong focus on being a tier-one, full service ISP with world class infrastructure and comprehensive existing data, sales, and technical support infrastructure to deliver broadband access and advanced data services to business customers across the nation."
In pursuing its original business plan of offering high-speed broadband to the hospitality and multi-tenant market, the Company became a fully operational tier-one ISP, with a nationwide broadband OC-12 and OC-3 network with 29 points of presence (POPs) serving 38 major metropolitan areas throughout the country.
Leveraging this network, the Company has turned its attention to offering tier-one ISP services, providing a full suite of bundled data services to business customers nationwide. Services include broadband Internet access, Web hosting, co-location services and other value added managed data services such as advanced multi-location connectivity and virtual private network (VPN) services. The Company's business current supports over 16,000 customers nationwide with traditional ISP services, primarily dedicated access and Web hosting.
Reflecting its commitment to providing cutting edge data services, the Company also announced today that its network is now 100 percent MPLS-enabled. MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) is an emerging protocol that enables the creation of virtual tunnels through an IP network, resulting in lower latency, higher quality of service, and the ability to offer application and user-specific service level agreements (SLAs) to business customers nationwide. See associated release titled: CAIS INTERNET ANNOUNCES MPLS THROUGHOUT ENTIRE COAST-TO-COAST BROADBAND NETWORK
In another related announcement, the Company today also announced the acquisition and successful transition of 1,947 PSINet customers to the CAIS network. See associated press release titled: CAIS INTERNET ADDS 1,947 FORMER PSINet CUSTOMERS AS SUBSCRIBERS OF ITS NETWORK.
Business Strategy
The Company's strategy and target market will focus on providing "Business Internet" services to customers nationwide. The Company sees a need in the business market place for a hybrid Internet experience that offers corporate customers with the quality and performance of a nationwide optical private data network while still providing accessibility to the commercial Internet.
"Today's businesses are embracing applications that demand a high level of quality, low packet loss and low latency," said Lee. "As emerging applications come into the market such as VPNs, video and voice over IP, the business customer needs an Internet experience that is of better quality than that offered by the generic Internet today. They need a hybrid 'Business Internet' and we are committed to delivering it."
The Company has built a network that serves this business need. The combination of high speed optical performance and MPLS switching makes the Company's network ideal for emerging business applications including high speed data transfer, VPNs, video conferencing, video streaming, ISP-hosted custom applications, and voice applications.
Additionally, the Company does not engage in the typical ISP practice of 'hot potato' routing, where a customer's traffic is routed off of the ISP's network and onto the 'generic' Internet as soon as possible. The Company's network is focused on providing a "Business Internet" experience, keeping the customer's traffic on its own network for as long as possible, and only passing data traffic off to the Internet at the closest point possible to the data's destination. This approach to data routing provides business customers with a much faster and higher quality data experience than if their data traffic was passed onto the 'generic Internet' as soon as it enters the ISP's network.
Current Data Services Offerings
Dedicated Broadband Solutions:
- T-1 & DS-3 (Full, Managed, Fractional, Burstable)
- IDSL, SDSL
- Two-way VSAT (Enterprise Broadband Satellite Service)
- Business dial-up
Full Range of Broadband Services
- Web Hosting
- Co-location
- Dedicated servers
- Caching
- Broadband/Streaming Video
- VPN
- Security/firewall
- E-mail (generic and Exchange/notes)
CAIS Internet, Inc.
CAIS Internet is headquartered in Washington, DC and operates a Cisco-powered, coast-to-coast OC-12 clear-channel Internet and ATM Network, and peers with public and private partners, and at national exchange points.
This release contains statements relating to CAIS's future expectations and business strategies or other "forward-looking" information. Those statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the statements. Important factors that may cause actual results to differ from projections include, among others: changes in business and market conditions; changes in the Internet services industry and the general economy; our limited operating history; our ability to manage rapid growth; our ability to enter into joint ventures and other strategic relationships with companies on terms acceptable to us; access to additional capital; and the impact of computer and related problems that may arise from our operations.