Nov. 25, 2002

Deutsche Telekom of Germany, the largest telecommunication company in Europe, recently placed orders with two Taiwan manufacturers for ADSL ( asymetric digital subscriber line ) and SOHO (small office/home office ) routers.

The two suppliers are ZyXEL Communications Corp. and Abocom Systems Inc., both manufacturers of networking/communication equipment. ZyXEL is the ODM manufacturer ofADSL andthe designer of OSHO routers, while Abocom undertaktes OEM production of SOHO routers.

Deutsche Telekom placed one-year orders for 600,000 sets of ADSL and 50,000 - 600,000 SOHO routers, with delivery of 80,000 sts of ADSL and 5,000 SOHO routers in the first installment under way and to be finished by the end of this year.

In related news, ZyXEL has scored points in tapping the European market, having obtained a large order from Telefonica, Spain’s largest telecommunication company earlier this year before the orders from Deutsche Telekom. ZyXEL already delivered its products to Deutsche Telekom in small quantities, and obviously due to satisfaction about the quality, for the first time made the large procurement from Taiwan.

The German market for broadband Internet access services is among the fastest growing ones in Europe. The broadband Internet user density was as low as 6% in 2001, implying a large room for improvement. In particular, the number of ADSL users in Germany increased by 732,000 or 39.8% in the first half of this year.