Schwan's USA CUP Youth Athletes make Over 500 Free Calls
Using Phenomenal Networks Internet Phone System

Edina, Minneapolis – Phenomenal Networks, a Minnesota-based, Cisco Premier Partner, announced that over 500 free calls were made in the first day of operation of its system deployed at Blaine for the SCHWAN'S USA CUP soccer tournament. The facility is aimed at the several thousand youth players that are participating from 18 countries outside the USA to enable them to keep in touch with home without the high cost of normal telephones. Players, coaches and referees from 16 countries called home in the first day of the Western Hemisphere's largest youth soccer tournament held in Blaine, Minnesota.

"We are excited that the youth players and their coaches are using the system as we had hoped " said Dave Shepherdson, CEO of Phenomenal Networks. "We have already had teams from 16 countries calling home to friends and parents. They come from the U.K., Ireland, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Sweden and Denmark to name just a few of the countries. We are pleased that our Cisco system is standing up well. We were running at nearly 200 calls per hour at one point during the day and expect that to grow during the week."

"This is just a great idea. Our players really appreciate being able to keep in touch with their families and friends and for free," said Matthew Bishop, coach of the Under-16 girls team from Wales. "We thank Phenomenal for providing the phone calls and also for having such a helpful staff to work with the players."

Phenomenal Networks has installed Cisco-based, IP telephony system on-site at Blaine in the activities hall and will be open from 10a.m. to 7p.m. each of the six days of the tournament. The system also has features such as International Time Zones, Team Fixtures and Results, Stock quote look-ups, worldwide weather reports that will be accessible via the IP phones displays for all participating players, coaches, parents, referees etc. Phenomenal has customized the system using Java XML so that each phone can be used for many data functions as well as for regular voice calls.

July 14, 2003