CooperVision Increases Network Performance While Reducing Costs With Time Warner Telecom's IP VPN

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Map) - ROCHESTER, N.Y., March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Time Warner Telecom Inc. (Nasdaq: TWTC), a leading provider of managed voice and data networking solutions for businesses, today announced a multi-year, contract to deploy an eight-site IP VPN solution to CooperVision, Inc. of Fairport, New York. CooperVision is a worldwide leader in the manufacture of contact lenses including toric astigmatism correction lenses and multifocal lenses.

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"Time Warner Telecom's end-to-end network solution delivers three times the bandwidth for about half the cost of our old network," said Steve Baxter, Director of regional IT, Americas for CooperVision in Fairport. "The installation of the high-capacity, IP VPN network was a critical to implementing the consolidation of our server and storage infrastructure in our Americas region. We estimate that project will save our company $1.5 million over the life of this telecommunications contract."

In addition to cost savings and increased bandwidth, CooperVision praised the flexibility that the Time Warner Telecom service provides. "We can scale circuit capacity up to a high of 1 Gbps in about one-third the time of other communications vendors I've worked with," explained Baxter. "And their class of service (CoS) technology is much easier and more flexible to implement than other providers, while being very cost competitive. CoS was a key technical requirement in being able to consolidate our IT infrastructure."

The full backing of service level agreements (SLAs) was an additional requirement IT managers had of a telecommunications vendor. "Time Warner Telecom was willing to stand by their network to guarantee SLAs, along with specified penalties for failing to meet those standards," recalled Baxter. "I was pleasantly surprised by that."

Time Warner Telecom is providing IP VPN services to eight CooperVision sites in New York, California, Arizona and Virginia. Six of these facilities utilize between 6 and 50 Mbps of fiber capacity. A dual-entry fiber connection to the company's corporate headquarters provides redundancy to the IP VPN network. Additionally, the company installed a 1 Gbps point-to-point circuit that supports data replication between the firm's production data center and a disaster recovery site. The new network delivers sufficient capacity and availability allowing managers to replace an outsourced conferencing solution with an in-house voice over IP (VoIP) solution utilizing Cisco's call and video conferencing technology.

"Our national fiber network along with our advanced communications solutions, such as IP VPN, gives businesses the capability, reliability and flexibility they require to grow their own networks," said Jim Groark, vice president and general manager for Time Warner Telecom in Rochester. "By providing these services entirely over our own network, we're able to deliver SLA guarantees that other providers simply can't match."

Time Warner Telecom is changing its name to tw telecom on July 1, 2008.

About Time Warner Telecom

Time Warner Telecom Inc., headquartered in Littleton, Colo., provides managed network services, specializing in Ethernet and transport data networking, Internet access, local and long distance voice, VoIP and security, to enterprise organizations and communications services companies throughout the U.S. As a leading provider of integrated and converged network solutions, Time Warner Telecom delivers customers overall economic value, quality, service, and improved business productivity. Time Warner Telecom will change its name to tw telecom on July 1, 2008. Please visit http://www.twtelecom.com for more information.

About CooperVision

CooperVision is one of the world's leading and fastest-growing manufacturers of contact lenses, currently the third-largest manufacturer in the United States and worldwide. CooperVision is considered the world's leading producer of premium-quality toric lenses for people with astigmatism. In addition, CooperVision manufactures lenses for people with spherical and presbyopic conditions.