Bay Wins Prodigy Modem Order Over Ascend

SplitRock Services Inc., which owns and is rebuilding Prodigy Inc.’s online network, said it ordered 50,000 modems from Bay Networks Inc. over rival products from Alameda-based Ascend Communications Inc. The purchase of Bay’s 5399 remote-access concentrators is the first large order for the new Bay product, analysts said. Remote-access concentrators are used by Internet service providers to link hundreds of telephone callers to the global computer network. SplitRock Chairman Kwok Li said he chose the Bay equipment because it offers both K56 Flex and X2 connections, which are incompatible, competing standards for the new high-speed, 56-kilobit-per-second links to the Internet. Ascend offers only K56 Flex connections. “Bay was very smart to make a box that gives me the choice to offer both standards,” Li said. Woodlands, Texas-based SplitRock serves 1 million Prodigy subscribers, making it one of the four largest Internet service providers in the U.S., Li said. Shares of Billerica, Mass.-based Bay Networks rose 25 cents to close at $41 on the New York Stock Exchange.