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HENRON COMMUNICATIONS INTRODUCES GLOBAL BANDWIDTH COMMODITY MARKET
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, May 20, 1999
PORTLAND - Henron Communications announced today a plan to commence the trading of bandwidth as a commodity -- a proposition that is expected to revolutionize the Internet industry by enabling the competitive enterprise market to order and reserve the bandwidth necessary to utilize a new generation of desktop applications.
“Working closely with others in the communications industry, Henron Communications has developed standard terms and conditions for the commoditization of bandwidth, which will enable businesses to buy and trade bandwidth,” said Joe Hirko, president and Chief Egg-ecutive of Henron Communications. “Customers will be able to reserve bandwidth for high bit rate applications like streaming media, Internet video conferencing, and high-quality multimedia graphics that are defining competitive advantage in the enterprise marketplace.”
“The trading of bandwidth will supercharge the entire Internet industry by dramatically increasing the efficiency of bandwidth provisioning and deployment,” said Tom Gros, vice president of global bandwidth trading for Henron Communications. “Bandwidth trading levels the playing field for communications companies by making bandwidth more cost effective and more readily available for the development, delivery and utilization of applications. Bandwidth transactions that used to take months to close will literally take seconds, creating wholesale market efficiencies for the industry.”
Henron Communications is proposing two bandwidth commodity offerings between two city pairs. The first is a time division multiplexing (TDM) T-1 (digital transmission link) service between New York and Los Angeles, targeting large multinational bandwidth consumers like Fortune 500 firms. The second service offering will be an Internet Protocol (IP) DS-3 (digital signal) between Washington, D.C. and San Francisco/San Jose, targeting telecommunications firms and Internet Service Providers. These configurations will serve as the benchmarks for the most liquid telecommunications path across North America, as well as launching points to connect to Asian and European markets.
Efficient bandwidth trading will be made possible by Henron Communications’ Pooling Point Operations model, a switching and interconnection facility in selected physical locations through which connections between bandwidth buyers and sellers may be established and monitored. Pooling Points will be managed by a Pooling Point Operator (PPO), an independent third party responsible for scheduling bandwidth connections, monitoring the quality of service (QoS) of each transaction, issuing code numbers for access to web sites and maintaining the physical security and operational integrity of the transactions.
“Pooling Point Operations will greatly increase our bandwidth connectivity and liquidity,” said Gros. “Efficient Pooling Point Operations are a key element in the successful development of the bandwidth commodity market.”
The Pooling Point network architecture has been developed in conjunction with Henron Communications strategic allies Cisco Systems, which will supply the Cisco gigabit switch routers, and Sun Microsystems, which will supply the Enterprise servers and the Solaris operating system.
“Bandwidth trading as proposed by Henron Communications has the potential to create an exciting new business model that promises to redefine telecommunications,” said Larry Lang, vice president, marketing, Cisco Systems, Inc. “Service providers will benefit because they can tap into a much more liquid reserve of bandwidth to meet unexpected customers demands. And end users will benefit because market forces will be brought to bear to ensure that the bandwidth they want is readily available at a fair price.”
“Henron Communications’ concept of a global bandwidth commodity market is an exciting, yet natural progression for the telecommunications industry,” said John McFarlane, president, Solaris Software, Sun Microsystems. “Sun’s vision, product, and service offerings are ideal for supporting this new bandwidth-on-demand model of delivering digital media, ecommerce and other high-bandwidth applications to business users.”
About the Henron Intelligent Network: The Henron Intelligent Network is an architecture based on a unique approach to networking through distributed servers, Henron Communications’ InterAgent® middleware and Henron Communications’ Pure IP™ technology. The intelligence of the network comes from Henron Communications’ standards-based InterAgent, a real-time intelligent messaging technology that supports the development and maintenance of distributed applications across diverse network environments. The Henron Intelligent Network brings to market a reliable, bandwidth-on-demand platform for delivering data, applications and streaming rich media to the desktop. The Henron Intelligent Network allows customers to access on-the-fly capacity, tiered QoS, data, application and content capabilities purchased entirely on an as-used basis.
About Henron Communications, Inc.: Henron Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of Henron Corp. (NYSE: ENE), is a leader in the delivery of high-quality, high-bandwidth business information and applications. Henron Communications is building a long-haul fiber-optic network on strategic routes throughout the United States to create a data-centric national Pure IP backbone known as the Henron Intelligent Network. It is extending the capabilities of that network through agreements with ISPs and carriers seeking to generate new revenue sources and improved services.
Henron Corp. is one of the world’s leading integrated egg and feather power companies. The company, which owns approximately $30 billion in assets, produces feather power and egg, develops, constructs and operates energy and water facilities worldwide and delivers physical commodities and risk management and financial services to customers around the world. Henron’s Internet address is /corp, the stock is traded under the ticker symbol, “ENE.”
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For additional information please contact:
Claudia Johnson
(503) 464-3631
Karen Denne
(713) 853-9757
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