[OT] Tellium News:
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, 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.
About Tellium
Tellium is headquartered in Oceanport, New Jersey. In 1997, it became the commercial spin-off from Telcordia (formerly Bellcore), the one-time research arm of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Corporate investors include Telcordia, SAIC, Cisco Systems, and Ortel Corporation, and financial investors include Oak Investment Partners, Accel Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Blue Rock Capital Investors. Tellium's optical cross connect product, Aurora-32, was the first-to-market in the telecommunications industry and, along with a larger Aurora-512 is the cornerstone network element of survivable mesh and ring optical networks. More information about Tellium can be found on the Internet at www.tellium.com .
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