Juniper Networks Inc., Mountain View, CA has entered into an agreement with five communications and

Juniper Networks Inc., Mountain View, CA has entered into an agreement with five communications and networking companies--Ericsson, Nortel, 3Com Corp., the Siemens/Newbridge Alliance, and WorldCom Inc.`s subsidiary, uunet Technologies Inc.--and has received from them $40 million in equity financing. The investment completes a third round of financing and brings the total investment in Juniper Networks to $56 million. In addition to ownership interests, the participating companies have the opportunity to integrate Juniper`s technology with their existing product lines and services worldwide. Juniper Networks is focused on the development and delivery of high-performance networking products designed to take advantage of the increasing bandwidth provided by fiber-optic networks for the growing Internet market.