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Startup company ropes in top names

Arthur J Pais in California

Accelerated Networks Inc, innovator of integrated broadband access solutions named recently as DataCommunications's Top 25 startups, has wooed Pete Patel as its vice-president of operations.

The three-year-old firm, with over $ 320 million in revenues last December, had made another top level gain two months ago, when Yogi Mistry, a 20 year software development veteran in telecommunications and data communications, joined it as general manager at its software center.

Patel, with nearly 25 years in telecommunication business, came to Accelerated from Advanced Fibre Communications, where he led its operations team from pre-IPO revenues of $ 10 million to $ 300 million. "He brings with him expertise in building operations organizations in companies experiencing rapid revenue growth," Suresh Nihalani, president and CEO of Accelerated, said.

"The addition of Pete rounds out the executive team," Nihalani said.

"As we enter into volume production, the timing is excellent for Pete to lead the operations organization into the next step of growth and maintain focus on quality manufacturing processes. The groundwork is in place for the stringent quality of carrier-class manufacturing required by our service-provider customers."

Accelerated, a privately held company based in Southern California, develops integrated broadband access solutions for local access providers. These systems enable providers to offer a full complement of bundled voice and data services over a single, low-cost access line. It markets innovative access products designed for local access providers. Its products include customer-located integrated access devices and central-office- based multi-service access platforms -- the first complete integrated broadband access solution in the industry.

By utilizing cell-based ATM transport, Accelerator products also provide greater bandwidth efficiency, strict quality of service guarantees, and on-demand access to basic and enhanced services.

It hires about 70 people.

Industry observers believe Patel and Mistry's appointments empowers Accelerated to be an even bigger player.

It recently won the Best of Show Product Awards Program designed to help buyers evaluate the expansive offering of new products which debuted at NetWorld+Interop 98 Atlanta. The editors of Data Communications and LANTimes scour the industry and show floor evaluating hundreds of new products and select winners for unique and innovative products that strive to provide customers with cutting edge networking benefits. Accelerated Networks's Accelerator solution was singled out to receive this honor from a field of more than 400 entries, said Lee Keough, editor-in-chief of Data Communications.

Other winners included Quad Research's Stratas Web Server, Internet Devices's Fort Knox high-speed VPN engine, MCI Worldcom's Internetlink, Red Hat Software's Secure Web Server v 2.0, FlowWise's Router Accelerator 7000, and Apogee Networks' Netcountant.

"We believe that the melding of the public and private networks and the services they carry is exactly the environment that will benefit from our integrated broadband access solution," Nihalani said. "Our goal is to enable emerging access providers to offer a bundle of services over a single access line, with simplified provisioning and low cost of ownership."

Its officials said they had admired for many months Patel's achievements at AFC which including the building and managing of a sizeable team consisting of purchasing, material management, global sourcing and distribution, manufacturing engineering, test engineering, test and assembly. AFC employs over 200 people.

He "dramatically" improved on-time delivery by implementing a demand flow technology strategy, which improved overall material planning, customer delivery and quality, Accelerated officials said. He was also instrumental in establishing processes to support the rapid growth experienced by the company.

Before his stint at AFC, Patel spent seven years at Optilink Corp, which was ultimately acquired by DSC Communications. During this time, Optilink grew to a company with $ 400 million in revenues.

Patel was instrumental in bringing the first SONET-based optical loop carrier and fiber in the loop products from design to production. He was also active in the company's ISO 9001 certification process.

Prior to joining Optilink, Patel was an operations manager at Ericsson in Anaheim. There, he managed a variety of operations teams during the introduction of the Timespan 128 Digital Subscriber Loop System and PABX system.

Before joining Accelerated, Mistry was vice-president of engineering at the Harris Corporation's communication products division. During his tenure,he was responsible for the introduction of ISDN technology, establishment of an international software resource center, and building strategic technology partnerships. Very active in standards development, he represented the Harris Corporation in the ANSI T1, T1M1, T1S1, T1P1, and T1E1 ISDN standards bodies. In addition, he held primary responsibility for the initiation and management of key strategic development partnerships worldwide.

"By bringing Yogi on board, we will be able to form development partnerships and identify solutions that will allow us to bring more complex and varied features to market in a short time," Nihalani said.

"Yogi's knowledge and experience will provide a solid foundation for our future growth."

Early this month, the Nevada-based MGC Communications Inc, a leading integrated communications service provider, announced it has initiated bundled voice and data services based on equipment from Accelerated. The multi-million dollar deployment calls for Accelerated's products to be installed at MGC's customer locations, central office collocations, and regional host switch sites.

"A bundled voice and data solution for the end-user is now a reality," said Maurice J Gallagher, Jr, chairman of the MGC board. "We have been searching for over 12 months for a solution to allow us to deploy a uniform set of services to our customers regardless of whether they are on the other end of a T1 line or a local loop. Accelerated's products will simplify our provisioning processes, allowing us to reduce our direct and administrative costs. Our already deployed assets of switches, large network of collocations, provisioning experience with five ILECs and direct access to the end-user uniquely position MGC to rapidly implement a bundled voice and data solution in our operational markets."

"We believe our strategy of offering simplified rate packages on one bill with an outstanding value proposition will be an extremely attractive product set. We are convinced that a bundled voice and data solution represents the future of the communications industry," Gallagher said.

Nihalani said Accelerated had "long believed that delivering voice and data services using a single access facility is the most viable business model in today's competitive service provider market."

"The integrated broadband access model allows service providers to significantly cut costs while increasing their ability to rapidly deploy and sell new services. We believe MGC's selection of Accelerated's product set validates this perspective," he continued, echoing his earlier announcement that Patel and Mistry's addition to the company's top echelon would continue to spur Accelerated's growth into the new millennium.

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