Allstream Helps Canadian Companies Connect with Confidence by Defending Against Cyber Crime

New Internet security offer delivers DDoS protection for less than $4 a day

Stock Symbol:  MBT

TORONTO, May 1, 2013 /CNW/ - Allstream, Canada's all-business communications provider, today announced a special offer of its Allstream Secure Internet service that will make it easy and cost-effective for customers to protect their business from a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. A typical DDoS attack involves saturating the target website server with such a high volume of requests that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered essentially unavailable.

"Every day businesses lose thousands of dollars for each hour they are impacted by DDoS attacks, and traditional perimeter security solutions such as firewalls will not provide sufficient protection," said Colin Doherty, President, Arbor Networks, a leading provider of network security solutions. "Partnering with a service provider like Allstream, who takes a comprehensive approach to reducing the risk of DDoS attacks, will allow Canadian businesses to operate more productively and securely."

With Allstream's Secure Internet offer customers get the speed, stability and affordability of Allstream's high-performance Internet with added security protection services at prices starting at $100 per month, less than $4 per day. DDoS attacks are identified, quarantined and scrubbed before they reach a customer's network, without affecting legitimate Internet traffic. Allstream customers have the advantage of only needing to work with one supplier.

"We want to make it easy for Canadian businesses to defend themselves against the increasing threat of DDoS attacks - we see this as an extension of our commitment to providing quality and excellence in customer service," said Ron Rout, Vice President, Customer Operations, Allstream. "By providing this service through the cloud Allstream is able to offer it to a broad array of customers, from very large enterprises to smaller businesses, who will now be able to protect themselves against DDoS attacks."

Arbor Networks and Allstream are part of the Cloud Signaling Coalition (CSC), a group set up to prevent DDoS attacks or mitigate its threat. The CSC is an innovative partnership between service providers, data centre operators and enterprises with the mission to ensure the availability of their network infrastructure and speed time-to-mitigation for DDoS attacks.

For more detail on the Allstream Secure Internet Offer, go to http://www.allstream.com/offers/secure-internet.html.

About Allstream

Allstream is a Canadian leader in IP communications and the only national communications provider that works exclusively with business customers of all sizes. With nearly 600,000 customer connections, Allstream's momentum is fuelled by the knowledge, skills and entrepreneurial spirit of its 2,500 employees across the country who collaborate with customers to determine their unique communications solutions needs. Supported by its more than 30,000-kilometre nationwide high-performance fibre-optic network, Allstream's broad portfolio of business solutions are built from an array of advanced communications technologies and services including a wide range of innovative, highly-scalable IP-based solutions to help organizations communicate more efficiently and profitably. Allstream takes pride in its commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience, and has long been recognized by its technology partners for the contributions made to their businesses. Allstream is wholly-owned by Manitoba Telecom Services Inc., which is listed on the TSX (trading symbol: MBT). For information on Allstream's products and solutions, please visit www.allstream.com.

Forward-looking Statements Disclaimer

This news release includes forward-looking statements and information (collectively, the "statements") about the Company's corporate direction, business opportunities, operations, financial objectives and future financial results and performance that are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. As a consequence, actual results in the future may differ materially from any conclusion, forecast or projection in such forward-looking statements. Therefore, forward-looking statements should be considered carefully and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Examples of statements that constitute forward-looking information may be identified by words such as "believe", "expect", "project", "should", "anticipate", "could", "target", "forecast", "intend", "plan", "outlook", "see", "set", "pending", and other similar terms.

Factors that could cause anticipated opportunities and actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, matters identified in the "Material assumptions" section below, the "Risks and uncertainties" section, elsewhere in the Company's 2012 Annual MD&A and 2012 Annual Information Form, all of which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Please note that forward-looking statements reflect Management's expectations as at the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

SOURCE: MTS Allstream

Media:
Alexandra Walsh
Corporate Communications
647-642-4030
[email protected]