Cascade Communications — 2 prefixes (MA-L)

Cascade Communications Corporation holds two separate MA-L (24-bit) OUI assignments in the IEEE registry: 00-60-D1 and 00-40-FB, both registered under the organization name "CASCADE COMMUNICATIONS" at a Westford, Massachusetts address. Founded in 1990 by Gururaj Deshpande, Cascade built carrier-grade Frame Relay and ATM WAN switches — most notably the B-STDX9000 Frame Relay switch and the CBX-500 and GX-550 ATM switches — sold to telecom service providers worldwide, and in 1993 announced a joint technology and marketing relationship with Cisco Systems. The company was acquired by Ascend Communications in March 1997 for roughly $3.7 billion in stock; Ascend was itself acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999 for approximately $24 billion, folding the former Cascade product lines into Lucent's portfolio. Two confirmed MA-L blocks plus this documented product and acquisition history place Cascade well above a bare single-OUI shell registration, even though the hardware itself is obsolete 1990s carrier equipment unlikely to appear on any network scanned today.

IEEE assignments

two MA-L blocks — 00-60-D1 (address: 6 Technology Park Drive, Westford, MA, US 01886) and 00-40-FB (address field: "Production Quality Engineer, Westford, MA, US 01886" — a contact-title string, not a standard street address) [Confirmed] — the IEEE MA-L registry (lines 1943, 10774); cross-checked against the Wireshark manufacturer database (lines 15377, 10764)

Registry / block size

MA-L (24-bit OUI); no MA-M (the IEEE MA-M registry) or MA-S (the IEEE MA-S registry) assignments found for this org [Confirmed] — the IEEE MA-M registry, the IEEE MA-S registry (no matches). NOTE: IEEE's public OUI data publishes NO assignment/registration date for either block; none is attributed here.

HQ / country

Westford, MA, US (both registry addresses) [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L

Company status

defunct — acquired by Ascend Communications in March 1997 (~$3.7B in stock); Ascend was itself acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999 (~$24B) [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Communications, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascend_Communications

Device types

carrier-grade Frame Relay and ATM WAN switches sold to telecom service providers, not consumer hardware [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Communications, https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/ascend-communications-inc-history/

Notable products

B-STDX9000 (Frame Relay switch); CBX-500 and GX-550 (ATM switches) [Confirmed] — https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/ascend-communications-inc-history/, https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/95/Ascend-Communications-Inc.html

Corporate history

founded 1990 by Gururaj Deshpande; 1993 joint technology/marketing relationship with Cisco Systems announced publicly [Confirmed] — https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y1993/m12/cisco-systems-and-cascade-communications-announce-joint-technology-and-marketing-relationship.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Communications

Address anomaly

the 00-40-FB registry address field reads "Production Quality Engineer, Westford, MA, US 01886" — a job-title string that leaked into the address field rather than a street address, a known artifact of older MA-L records; recorded verbatim from the registry, not corrected [Confirmed as a registry artifact, not a claim about the company's real address] — the IEEE MA-L registry (line 10774)

Security/abuse context

targeted searches for both prefixes and the vendor name found no CVE, botnet, or abuse-tracker reporting [Unknown — absence of evidence is not evidence of absence] — no citation (negative search result)

Related vendors

Ascend Communications (acquirer, 1997); Lucent Technologies (parent post-1999) [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascend_Communications

Analyst note

both prefixes identify obsolete 1990s carrier WAN switching gear retired well over two decades ago; treat a match as legacy/historic, not active current-production equipment [Likely — inferential from product-line retirement, not directly sourced].