BULLS
5. Aware Inc.

By Gregg Krupa, Globe Staff, 05/18/99

nvestors are increasingly well aware of this high-tech firm.

Aware's stock price improved by more than 200 percent from March 31, 1998, to March 31 as investors clearly recognized just how hot Aware's technology has become in the telecommunications sector. All of this growth came in the last few months of that period.

Aware's asymmetric digital subscriber line technology, or ADSL, allows companies such as Bell Atlantic and Lucent Technologies Inc. to simultaneously deliver telephone conversations and Internet access to customers' homes over standard copper telephone wires.

ADSL and Aware have been around for more than a decade, but interest in both has boomed as the telecommunications landscape has been redrawn, said Michael Tzannes, Aware's president. Among the most interested customers are telephone companies trying to compete with cable television providers such as MediaOne Group Inc. and RCN Inc., which offer high-speed access to the Internet over cable TV lines.

''The stock performance and investor interest is the result of the success of our product, which, in turn, results from the market being much more mature than it has been in previous years,'' Tzannes said.

ADSL is so successful that the United Nations has cited it as the worldwide industry standard. In October, the International Telecommunications Union, a UN agency, adopted the ADSL technology as part of a new standard for superfast modems. A consortium of major telephone and computer companies immediately hailed the standard and signaled they would move quickly to deploy products containing it. Since that development, Aware's stock has increased about sixfold.

This story ran on page D20 of the Boston Globe on 05/18/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.