IPO or buyout?
Either way, Tellium is making a HUGE impact on optical switching networks.
EXTANT AND TELLIUM REVEAL PLANS TO BE THE FIRST GLOBAL CARRIER TO
DEPLOY OPTICAL SWITCHING TO SPEED SERVICE DELIVERY
ANNOUNCES LONG TERM AGREEMENT FOR TELLIUM?S AURORA OPTICAL CROSS
CONNECTS
Oceanport, NJ, June 7, 1999 -- Tellium and Extant Communications announce today a
plan to deliver the first intelligent optical switching network. Extant has entered into a
multi-year $250 Million agreement with Tellium, Inc. to deploy Tellium's Aurora series of
optical cross connects throughout the Extant network beginning later this year. Extant will
always use leading edge thinking to bring better service options to our customers, said
Larry McLernon, President and CEO. Optical switching will allow speedier provisioning and
immediate restoral in the event of an outage. The selection of this technology will increase
the robustness of our hubs without affecting the relationship with our present vendors.
Extant will begin by deploying Tellium's Aurora 32 in 8 cities by the end of 1999 and follow
with deployment of Tellium's recently announced Super Switch, the Aurora 512, in 2000.
Visit booth 3041 at Supercomm 1999 to see a live demonstration of both products. Optical
switching allows service providers to cross-connect high-speed optical signals (up to
OC-48) bypassing the entire SONET/DCS layer. Optical layer switching improves
backbone fiber network performance and dramatically lowers cost when compared to
traditional methods of operations.
Extant and Tellium have been working together on a plan to build the world's first network
using optical layer switching as the key enabler to faster, more reliable services. Tellium is
thrilled to participate in Extant's network architecture, engineering and delivery. Our
common vision of constructing an intelligent optical layer made our Aurora Cross Connect
products an excellent fit for Extant's network deployment strategy, said Richard Barcus,
President, Tellium. Jerry Johnson, Executive Vice President of Safeguard Scientifics, the
principal investor in Extant, says, "This announcement accelerates Extant's ability to
deliver e-commerce applications to the marketplace. We are excited about the Tellium
relationship."
The agreement outlines deployment timelines and gives Extant a voice in fine tuning the
development of new features planned over the next several months. The reasons we chose
to work with Tellium are very basic, they know a lot about optical networking and they are
the only company that has a product we can actually see and test, added McLernon.
Last month Tellium announced the introduction of the Aurora-512 optical cross connect
switch, the highest capacity optical layer switching element available in the
telecommunications industry. Nick-named a super switch, the Aurora-512 has a capacity
of 512 OC-48 optical connections for a total switching capacity of 1.28 Terabits per
second. The launch of the new Aurora-512 product will take place in June at
SUPERCOMM ?99 in Atlanta.
Key features of the Aurora-512 include:
512 bi-directional ports, up to OC-48 line rate
OC-192 port scalable
Fully redundant switch architecture
I/O port protection 1:N user programmable
Optical line protection switching <50 msec
SONET performance monitoring
Optical ring restoration
Optical mesh restoration software
About Extant
Extant, Inc. is the niche provider of wholesale national ATM data transport and
clearinghouse services to regional, next-generation telecommunications service providers.
For more information about Extant, Inc. and its services, please call 303-256-6100 or visit
their Web Site at extant.net or send e-mail to info@extant.net. Extant, Inc.,
Pavilion Tower II, Suite 700, 2821 South Parker Road, Aurora, Colorado 80014.
About Safeguard
Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (www.safeguard.com) develops and operates rapidly growing
information technology companies that together form a community of shared resources
with a strategic emphasis in eCommerce, enterprise applications, and network
infrastructure, all of which are expected to benefit from the growing use of the Internet as a
fundamental business tool. A long-term partner, Safeguard works closely with its
partnership companies providing numerous operational and developmental services to build
value in preparation for public rights offerings and beyond. The Company's partnership
companies include privately-held companies and public companies. Safeguard also assists
in managing and working with several venture capital funds. |
