Aztek's solutions enable telephone cooperative to reduce electricity costs while simultaneously strengthening service

Boulder, Colo. (February 23, 2009) - Aztek Networks (www.azteknetworks.com), the leader in telecommunications switch solutions for network migration, today announced that Northwest Telephone Cooperative Association has chosen to deploy Aztek Network's 5000S switch solution. Aztek's products allow carriers to offer additional telephone and cable features and capabilities to subscribers without increased energy usage and at less cost than alternative switch replacements.

Aztek Networks’ network migration solutions offer a cost-effective alternative to older remote switches that need to be replaced – both in reduced energy usage and overall replacement costs. In addition, Aztek’s switching solutions specifically are designed to continuously maintain local calling capabilities and subscriber access to emergency 911 services in the event the link to the primary host switch is severed.
Northwest Telephone Cooperative Association provides telecommunications and interest services to more than 60 communities representing thousands of households spread throughout Northwest Iowa. The cooperative was incorporated in 1963 and has been serving its loyal customers since its inception. Northwest Telephone Cooperative Association and its subsidiary companies offer local and long distance telephone, cable TV, paging, cellular phone and Internet services. The cooperative strives to meet the telecommunications needs of all its members and is at the forefront of providing services that meet customer demand while simultaneously being environmentally conscious.

“We turned to Aztek Network’s 5000S solution because it provided a simple, cost-effective and ‘green’ solution when we needed to replace an obsolete class 5 switch,” explained Chase Cox, CTO of Northwest Telephone Cooperative Association. “Not only is the 5000S extremely easy to manage and cost-effective, but our members benefit from knowing it is extremely dependable and resilient. For instance, in the event of a network outage, our members still have access to local and emergency calling capability.”

Aztek Networks builds and supports switch consolidation and network migration solutions for telecommunication service providers. These solutions allow providers to:

• Remove traditional voice switches while maintaining network reliability
• Reduce network expenses in order to stay in-line with declining voice network revenues
• Provide an incremental migration path from TDM to packet networks
• Increase network resiliency

In today's environment, telecommunication providers are migrating to packet networks in order to increase revenues and competitiveness while needing to reduce voice network expenses by removing voice switches. The benefits of removing voice switches include reducing power and HVAC consumption, lowering support fees, eliminating costly switch maintenance manpower, reducing property taxes and greater utilization of newer voice switches or softswitches.

“Green business initiatives are now a top priority for telecommunications companies as the need to conserve energy and counter the threat of global warming are felt urgently worldwide,” said Steven Bruny, CEO of Aztek Networks. “The deployment of Aztek’s 5000S allows providers, like Northwest Telecommunications Cooperative Association, to consolidate the amount of softswitches they deploy and reduce the amount of energy spent on cooling equipment and maintenance.”

For more information please visit, www.azteknetworks.com

About Aztek Networks
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Aztek Networks is the leader in telecommunications switch consolidation solutions for network migration. The company’s patent-pending True Emergency Stand Alone (ESA)™ technology is the basis for the first and only truly open-standards, environmentally hardened and fully redundant ESA switch. Aztek’s TDM and IP-based ESA switches, when combined with fiber-to-the-home or broadband multi-service access systems, offer telecommunications carriers reliable and cost-effective solutions for green-field access applications and the replacement of legacy remote switches. More information is available at www.azteknetworks.com.