SAN JOSE, Calif., December 4, 2002 - Cisco Systems, Inc. announced today that SBC Communications Inc. has selected the industry-leading Cisco 12000 Series router to cost-effectively build out a national 10 Gbps OC-192 network to best meet the needs of its business customers today while laying a foundation for the creation and delivery of new services in the future.

The new backbone network, implemented by an SBC subsidiary, will transport Internet-based services such as Dedicated Internet Access, SBC-Yahoo! DSL, and SBC-Yahoo! Dial. In addition, the network will serve as the foundation for new and emerging IP transport and access capabilities for SBC's business customers. SBC will use MPLS-based traffic engineering to optimize backbone utilization and help meet customer service level agreements.

"SBC has implemented its national IP backbone network to accommodate surging IP traffic from our customers, while also helping us to reduce operational costs, and establishing a foundation for future services," said Eric Boyer, vice president - Network Planning and Engineering, SBC. "Cisco industry-leading technology and solutions helped us to upgrade our network and maximize network utilization, providing a cost-effective foundation for the delivery of a new class of national data and IP-based services to our business and residential customers."

"We are very pleased to reach another milestone in our long term relationship with SBC by helping them build out a highly reliable and flexible OC-192 national backbone," said Mike Volpi, senior vice president, Routing Technology Group at Cisco. "The Cisco 12000 Series router provides the highest reliability, the richest set of service enablers, the lowest total cost of ownership, and proven investment protection. This innovative combination of features and capabilities enables service providers like SBC to build the most competitive IP and MPLS networks."