LightRiver Technologies wins contracts to upgrade carriers' networks with Lucent Technologies' equipment

14 October 2003 Las Vegas Lightwave-- LightRiver Technologies, an accredited Lucent Business Partner, announced contracts to deploy Lucent Technologies optical networking systems and voice messaging products at Telemark Networks, and InterBel Telephone Cooperative, respectively. The contracts were announced at the United States Telecom Show, held here, this week.

Telemark Networks, a carrier in the metropolitan New York City area that provides broadband services for companies in the financial services industry, needed to expand its network to serve one of Europe's largest banks with locations throughout the Northeast. LightSpeed Technologies, LightRiver's East Coast sales partner, worked with Telemark to design and deploy a metro optical network to close a large span between New Jersey, upstate New York, and New York City. Telemark installed a Metropolis DMX network, which allows the company to carry the bank's critical data traffic to secondary sites using Gigabit Ethernet over SONET (EoS) at rates up to twenty times faster than their previous design.

"LightRiver's understanding of our business and knowledge of Lucent products were tremendous assets in helping us design and deploy a state-of-the-art optical networking solution that provides us with the bandwidth, robustness, and reliability we need to serve this industry," said Richard Romanski, president and chief executive officer, Telemark Networks. "With the added capacity, we no longer need to lease expensive DS-1 lines from our local telephone company, which is resulting in significant cash savings."

Separately, InterBel Telephone Cooperative (Eureka, MO) needed a system that would allow it to offer customers in a variety of markets a comprehensive suite of voice messaging services. LightRiver deployed Lucent Technologies messaging system, which is a central office-based system designed to allow carriers to offer a wide variety of applications for both the business and consumer markets. The messaging system has a cost-effective, scaleable architecture with a wide range of configuration options, and is compliant with all applicable industry standards and protocols. This solution offers open connectivity to external application processors, enabling carriers to design and offer multiple services from a single platform.

"The Lucent messaging system offers us high-end applications and services that fit a variety of residential and business needs, with cost-effective scaleable growth opportunities," said Randy Wilson, general manager of InterBel.

Lucent's Metropolis DMX, now deployed by more than 80 service providers, includes the DMX Access Multiplexer for central office and large enterprise applications, the DMXpress for customer premises applications, DMXtend, for enterprise and loop access applications, and DMXplore to deliver next-generation SONET services to the customer's premises. All of these products provide compatible next-generation SONET functionality and serve as integrated EoS metro platforms. When used together, the products create an end-to-end solution that allows carriers to offer faster, more sophisticated services while lowering operating costs.

LightRiver (Lafayette, CA) is a U.S. accredited Lucent business partner selling optical, switching, and data products from Lucent's portfolio. Lucent and LightRiver continue to work together to expand markets and provide innovative optical networking solutions for customers in the carrier, ISP, government, and utility markets.