Industry Update

Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC-San Diego) has developed an OC-48 and OC-192 resilient packet ring road map with the first product utilizing the spatial reuse protocol (SRP) developed by Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA) and AMCC's framer and physical-layer technology. Cisco has submitted SRP, which is based on open standards and is freely available, to the IEEE 802.17 RPR Working Group for consideration as the industry standard. In addition, AMCC has demonstrated the interoperability of its S3055 16-bit transceiver with clock and data recovery with Agilent Technologies Inc.'s (Palo Alto, CA) small-form-factor fiber-optic transceivers for SONET/SDH short-reach and intermediate-reach links.

Nortel Networks (Ontario) and Agilent Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) have agreed to jointly develop and market a solution for simplifying optical-network management. The solution will be designed to integrate physical fiber and logical network layers, leveraging the strengths of Nortel's Preside network management and Agilent's accessFIBER.

World Wide Packets (Veradale, WA) and AG Communication Systems (Phoenix) announced a product partnership under which the two companies will jointly market a complete voice-over-Internet-Protocol solution for fiber deployments. The two companies will offer service providers the iMerge network-based call signaling gateway from AG Communication Systems and the LightningEdge family of products from World Wide Packets as an integrated solution.

fSONA Communications Corp. (Richmond, British Columbia), manufacturer of optical wireless systems, has signed a long-term agreement with General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunications Systems (Needham, MA) for global installation and technical support services. Per the agreement, General Dynamics' telecom engineers and technicians will assist fSONA customers in the installation, technical support, and maintenance of the company's systems.

Metro-Optix (Allen, TX) has announced a value-added reseller agreement with International Fibercom Inc. (Phoenix) that also includes third-party and interoperability testing. Per the agreement, International FiberCom will resell Metro-Optix's CityStream multiservice provisioning optical platform through additional channels into its customer base.

Acterna (Germantown, MD) announced a multimillion-dollar agreement with TyCom Ltd. (Pembroke, Bermuda) to supply fiber-optic test equipment. Under terms of the agreement with TyCom, Acterna is providing advanced network testers supporting bit rates up to 10 Gbits, as well as optical power meters, sources, attenuators, OTDRs, and Acterna TestPad SDH analyzers.

Qwest Communications International Inc. (Denver) has successfully completed testing of Tellium Inc.'s (Oceanport, NJ) Aurora optical switch and will deploy the 512-port switch as part of its all-optical OC-192c Internet network. The two companies have also announced that they have expanded their multiyear strategic relationship, announced last September. Tellium's core optical switches will be deployed as part of Qwest's all-optical network initiative. Terms of the expanded contract were not disclosed.

Luminous Networks (Cupertino, CA) and Sonus Networks Inc. (Westford, MA) have announced a strategic partnership to provide carriers with toll-quality, carrier-class voice and VoIP capability on an optical Ethernet platform. The solution combines Luminous' PacketWave optical Ethernet switch platform and Sonus' soft switches and SS7 signaling gateways. In addition, Luminous has joined the Sonus Networks open services partner alliance to drive standards-based interoperability between applications and hardware vendors.

Multiservice switch vendor WaveSmith Networks (Acton, MA) has announced a strategic partnership with AP Engines Inc. (Maynard, MA), provider of workflow-enabled service creation and network usage management systems. Per the partnership, WaveSmith has become a participant in AP Engines' AP QuickLink adapter program, which will provide WaveSmith with the billing mediation functionality necessary for the seamless integration of its multiservice switch into the carrier environment.

Southampton Photonics Inc. (Cupertino, CA and Southampton, UK) has selected Camstar Systems Inc.'s (Campbell, CA) InSite e-manufacturing software as the execution engine for its collaborative manufacturing system at its facilities in the U.K. According to the companies, installing InSite will help Southampton Photonics accelerate its technology implementation process to ramp up volume production of its fiber Bragg gratings, EDFAs, and DFB fiber laser arrays.

FPL FiberNet (Miami, FL) has signed an agreement with TerreNAP Data Center (Miami) to provide fiber-optic connectivity for the NAP of the Americas network. Per the agreement, FiberNet will provide fiber to NAP customers requiring connectivity and cross-connectivity throughout the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In addition, Sphera Optical Networks Inc. (New York City) has purchased multiple strands of dark fiber from Fibernet's metro Miami ring.

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Camarillo, CA) and Nortel Networks (Brampton, Ontario) announced an agreement to promote resilient packet ring solutions aimed to address the demands for a more cost-effective, efficient, and scalable means of robustly transporting higher quality data services in the metropolitan network. Through this agreement, Vitesse will use its products in conjunction with Nortel Networks' OPTera Packet Edge resilient packet ring technology to develop complete 2.5-Gbit/sec and 10-Gbit/sec chipset platforms.

Eagle Broadband (League City, TX) announced that its subsidiary, ClearWorks Communications (Houston, TX), has re-cently taken delivery of more than 160,000 feet of 48-strand, singlemode optical fiber and has begun installing this fiber in the second leg of its metropolitan-area network on Houston's south side. This expansion of the company's MAN will pass by and provide more than 47,000 homes the opportunity to access ClearWorks' bundled digital services.

Light Management Group Inc. (LMG-Burlington, Ontario) announced it has signed a letter of intent with Fibre-Wired Burlington Hydro Communications (Burlington, Ontario) to provide LMG's acousto-optic switches for assessment in connection with the public utility and communications company. LMG's engineers and scientists will collaborate with FibreWired Burlington Hydro Communications engineers to customize LMG's switch to specifications outlined by FibreWired Burlington Hydro Communications.

Aura Networks, Inc. (Nashua, NH) announced that Cogent Communications (Washington, DC) will use Aura Networks' Radiance optical Ethernet system for fiber-optic provisioning to Cogent's nationwide, end-to-end all-optical network. Cogent has ordered approximately $1 million of Radiance metro-access equipment to be delivered over the next 18 months.

Global Crossing Ltd. (Beverly Hills, CA) and VDI Multimedia (Hollywood, CA) announced the establishment of a strategic alliance wherein both companies will co-market next-generation broadband services to the media and entertainment industry. Global Crossing also announced that its carrier services division has signed a two-year, $40-million network services agreement with U.S. Cellular to provide private-line and high-speed voice and data communication services. In addition, Global Crossing announced that the New York Public Service Commission has approved the sale of Global Crossing's incumbent local-exchange carrier (ILEC) business to Citizens Communications. The Federal Communications Commission also announced its approval of applications filed by Global Crossing and Citizens Communications seeking to transfer to Citizens licenses and authorizations held by Global Crossing's ILEC.

Williams Communications Group Inc. (Tulsa, OK) has signed a revised agreement to sell lit network capacity to Teleglobe (Reston, VA). Per the original agreement, Teleglobe was supposed to purchase dark fiber on Williams Communications' nationwide fiber-optic network. Per the revised agreement, Williams will provide broadband transport services, including OC-48 optical wave service along two fully diverse routes from New York to Santa Clara, CA. Williams will also provide Teleglobe with private-line services and multiple STM-1 backhaul circuits connecting the San Luis Obispo cablehead to Los Angeles.

FLAG Telecom (London) and TyCom Ltd. (Pembroke, Bermuda) have agreed in principle to develop their previously an-nounced transpacific systems under a joint development arrangement, with TyCom building the complete transpacific ring, including all undersea cable, electronics, and cable stations for approximately $1.7 billion. FLAG Telecom has also selected TyCom to provide subsea maintenance for its Atlantic and Pacific cable systems.

Wholesale metropolitan-area-network provider Cambrian Communications (Fairfax, VA) has broken ground on its first local access ring in Baltimore County, MD. The 46-mi ring will provide high-speed data access and transmission to and from business parks, large enterprises, central offices, and traffic aggregation points in Hunt Valley, Cockeysville, Towson, Pikesville, and Owings Mills.

CityNet Telecommunications Inc. (Silver Spring, MD) has signed a landmark license and access agreement with the city of Vienna, Austria, permitting the company to use Vienna's sewer system to build last-mile fiber-optic networks. CityNet offers a sewer-based ap-proach to solving the problem of how to connect individual buildings to large fiber-optic networks that typically circle around cities.

Cogent Communications (Washington, DC) announced its plans to immediately increase the size of its existing network backbone to 80 Gbits/sec due to larger than anticipated customer demand. This expansion is expected to be completed by third quarter 2001.

LightWave Communications Inc. (Laurel, MD) announced the completion of its metro DWDM network in New York City. These facilities connect several Verizon central offices in New York City onto the existing LightWave network giving customers a seamless optical metro access solution along the northeast. The LightWave network currently consists of 3,000 metro fiber miles.

Zenastra Photonics Inc. (Ontario, Canada), manufacturer of both active and passive components, has received its first orders and is shipping sample products to three systems manufacturers, who will field test and deploy the services as part of new system-development programs.

Terawave Communications (Hayward, CA) has announced major customer trials and the first customer order for its optical access product line, TeraPON. Service providers selecting the product for extensive trials include C2C Fiber (Houston), Shaw Communications (Canada), T-Nova Deutsche Telecom (Germany), and Singapore Telecom (Singapore). In addition, Taipei-based systems integrator FiberLab has placed an order for Terawave equipment to be deployed by several service providers in Taiwan.

JDS Uniphase Corp. (San Jose) has announced a global realignment program, which reflects the company's commitment to remaining an industry leader in optical components and modules for telecommunications during the current business downturn, and to position the company for substantial growth over the longer term.

Tellium Inc. (Oceanport, NJ) announced the opening of its intelligent optical mesh networking technical training facility for customers, their contractors, and Tellium employees. The center offers Tellium's customers hands-on training using their Aurora optical switches. At the center, students will also learn how to use the company's StarNet software suite to create, optimize, run, control, and provision optical networks.

Zolo Technologies Inc. (Louisville, CO) announced it has established a manufacturing facility in Singapore to meet the growing demand for DWDM devices. Zolo produces its Zmux line of multiplexer/demultiplexer products using proprietary DWDM free-space optics and grating technology to increase broad-band capacity and lower cost per channel for telecommunications providers.

TRW has announced the creation of Velocium (Manhattan Beach, CA), a new company that will provide very-high-speed indium phosphide and gallium arsenide (GaAs) components and other products for fiber-optic and wireless telecommunications systems. Velocium's product lines will include TRW's current line of commercial GaAs components.

Atoga Systems Inc. (Fremont, CA), pro-vider of intelligent WDM solutions using tunable lasers, has secured more than $50 million in equity and debt financing, led by Silicon Valley Internet Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. Previous investors New Enterprise Associates and Sequoia Capital also participated.

Quarry Technologies Inc. (Burlington, MA) has completed its Series C financing round, raising an additional $38 million and bringing its total funding to $66.5 million over the last two years. Participants included 3i Group, Jerusalem Venture Partners, and Corvis Corp.

Optical-network-management software provider Clear (Lincolnshire, IL) has closed a $20-million round of funding, led by William Blair Capital Partners VII. Lovett Miller & Co. Inc. also contributed to the round, which will be used to strengthen Clear's position in the market, say company representatives.

Atrica Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) announced it has received an investment from BellSouth Corp. (Atlanta). Douglas A. Bulleit, chief stra-tegist at BellSouth, will join Atrica's advisory board.

Cinta Networks (San Jose) announced it has raised $10 million in debt and lease-line financing. The latest financing is provided through CommVest LLC, and together with the company's November funding round last year of $36 million, brings Cinta's total funding and debt financing to $75 million to date.

Tunable Photonics Corp. (Altadena, CA) announced it has closed its Series A round of financing with a total of $7 million in venture-capital financing. Blueprint Ventures of San Francisco and Forrest, Binkley, and Brown of Newport Beach, CA, each invested $3 million, with The United Co. of Bristol, VA, providing $1 million. Tunable Photonics produces components for fiber-optic communications.

Alfalight (Madison, WI) has secured $10 million in equipment financing for its Madison- and Montreal-based operations. Participants in the funding included Silicon Valley Bank, GATX, Third Coast Capital, and Transamerica. This financing will be used for capital equipment in Alfalight's Madison and Montreal facilities.

European service provider Tiscali S.p.A. (Cagliari, Italy) has selected Juniper Networks Inc.'s (Sunnyvale, CA) M-Series routers for its core IP backbone. Tescali will deploy Juniper's M40 routers in points of presence throughout six major cities in Germany. The service pro-vider will also use Juniper's JUNOS software.

Alcatel's (Paris) DWDM solutions were selected by Portugal Telecom for its national optical backbone. It is the first 32-channel DWDM system ever to be deployed in Portugal. This new high-capacity and high-speed national backbone connects the two major cities across Portugal-Lisbon and Oporto-spanning a distance of 350 kilometers.

Sensa (Andover, UK) announced the opening of its Houston office as part of its U.S. deployment of a proven oil field management tool. Based on fiber-optic sensing technology, Sensa's systems combine fiber-optic sensors with advanced telecommunications, enabling real-time well monitoring and analytical tools that help oil field operators detect problems in advance for proactive resolution.

British Telecom (U.K.) has selected Acterna (Germantown, MD) as its preferred supplier of optical testers. The three-year contract to supply BT with OTDRs, software, and attenuators was won on the basis of the performance and functionality of Acterna's rugged, portable MTS field tester.

Global Crossing Ltd. (Beverly Hills, CA) announced it has lit up VoIP gateway centers in Europe and is now carrying traffic between Europe and the U.S. Core gateway centers are located in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, and Paris, plus 15 tier-one markets in the U.S.

China Netcom Corp. (CNC-Beijing) has selected Luminous Networks' (Cupertino, CA) PacketWave optical access switches for deployment in metropolitan-area networks in China. Luminous has begun shipping its carrier-class optical Ethernet platform to CNC for use in metropolitan-area networks in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

China Unicom (Beijing) has selected Corning Inc.'s (Corning, NY) LEAF fiber for the optical backbone of its long-haul network. By the end of the year, China Unicom will have deployed several hundred thousand kilometers of LEAF fiber for the initial phase of its 150,000-km network.

The Korea Internet Neutral Exchange Center (KINX-Korea) has deployed Alidian Networks's (San Jose) optical service network (OSN) 4200 metro DWDM systems to provide its customers with large-scale, collocation Internet connection and network-management services.

ONI Systems Corp. (Singapore) an-nounced the opening of its Asia-Pacific headquarters, ONI Systems Pte. Ltd., which began operations in the first quarter of this year. Dr. Patrick Sim, vice president and managing director Asia-Pacific, will manage the new operation.

RSoft Inc. (Ossining, NY) has an-nounced an exclusive distribution agreement with Sony/Tektronix (Tokyo) for sales and services of its software products in Japan. Sony/Tektronix will handle RSoft's full line of software products for CAD and simulation of both photonic devices and optical communication systems.

VPI Virtual Photonics (Holmdel, NJ) has signed a research and development agreement with the Optical Internet Research Center at the Information and Communication University (ICU-Daejeon, Korea). The agreement includes joint pursuit of collaborative research projects and the establishment of a regional VPI software users' group.

Walsin Lihwa Corp., a cable and wire company in Taipei, Taiwan, has formed a five-year, $10-million research alliance with the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) to establish the Walsin Lihwa Electronics and Photonics Center on the UCSB campus. The alliance includes $7.3 million to support specific research projects, three of which have already been proposed. The remaining $2.7 million will be used to support fellowships for graduate students and to purchase equipment.

Core-routing solutions provider Avici Systems Inc. (North Billerica, MA) has opened two new offices in Beijing and Hong Kong to enhance its ability to support local customers and partners. Avici's sales, services, and support capabilities in Asia include partnerships with Nissho and Itochu in Japan, Samsung in Korea, and CommVerge Solutions in the Pan-Asian region.

360networks (Vancouver) announced the completion and lighting of a major network segment linking Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The 1,200-km (750-mi) terrestrial route is scheduled to enter commercial service in late May.

New World Network, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company and the principal owner in the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS) cable network, has received permission from the government of Mexico to land the ARCOS cable in Cancun. Following permission from the Mexican authorities, TyCom Ltd., a global submarine cable provider, installed the ARCOS shore-end cable segment in Cancun on April 24, 2001. With the marine installation of ARCOS Phase I from the United States to Puerto Rico now complete, New World Network plans to continue on schedule toward completion of the entire 8,600-km ARCOS ring by third quarter of 2001.