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Bytemobile Boosts Vodafone's Wireless Data Delivery

Macara™ Platform, a New Element for Wireless Networks, Selected by Leading U.K. Mobile Operator to Improve User Experience and Data Access Rates.

Mountain View, Calif. - January 28, 2002

Bytemobile, Inc. today announced it has signed a software and hardware supply agreement with Vodafone Limited, the U.K.'s leading mobile operator. Vodafone has installed Bytemobile's Macara platform, a flexible and comprehensive data optimization solution with capabilities for integrating future services, as a key component of its GPRS wireless network.

"With our Macara platform, Vodafone is now providing enhanced data services — faster access speeds and intelligent compression — over their existing networks," said Steve Livingston, senior vice president of North American sales and global marketing. "Our technology allows mobile operators to differentiate their data services by providing a better user experience for their customers."

The Macara platform represents a new network element — a wireless optimization service node (WOSN) — for carriers looking to improve performance of their wireless networks. Situated directly in the carrier's network data path, the Macara WOSN dynamically improves the delivery of IP-based data on wireless networks and significantly improves bandwidth utilization. Macara's optimization of wireless data networks results in an enhanced customer experience, which can in turn promote greater adoption and usage of wireless data products and services.

"The intelligence of the Macara platform enables it to understand and monitor the characteristics of a packet data network, optimizing and solving transmission problems," said Bytemobile co-founder Dr. Constantine Polychronopoulos, vice president of strategic alliances. "In practical terms, this means more robust connections and higher data throughput than previously possible."

Depending on the type of file sent, acceleration gains of up to 7X have been realized for transfer times, and compression improvements, measured as file transfer size reductions, of up to 10X have been realized with the Macara platform. These improvements can translate to deferred outlays of significant capital for 3G and other network enhancements by the carriers.

The Macara platform is scalable, agnostic to the network air interface and transparent to both the network and end user; it requires no client-side software. The Macara WOSN also incorporates advanced networking technology that enables carriers to offer improved security and scalability for data services-an especially important consideration for their enterprise customers. Additional services allow carriers to extend the "trusted domain" of enterprise customers throughout their network; these services include network-initiated virtual private networks (VPNs); virtual local area networks (VLANs); network address translation (NAT); and authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA).

The Macara WOSN has also been engineered with open APIs that allow carriers to integrate emerging wireless services. "Increasingly, carriers will need to offer new and compelling data services as part of their growth. The Macara platform easily allows for those services to be inserted into the carriers' data offerings," said Polychronopoulos.

About Bytemobile

Bytemobile enables wireless carriers to improve the wireless data-user experience and security over any wireless data network, regardless of their underlying technology, and including 2G, 2.5G and 3G. The company offers a unique suite of compression, acceleration and network connectivity technologies — with capabilities for network-initiated virtual private network (VPN); virtual local area network (VLAN); network address translation (NAT); and authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) — that enables carriers to offer improved services to consumer and enterprise customers.

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