Industry Update

North America

Aerie Networks Inc. (Denver) has selected Corning Inc. (Corning, NY) to supply 8.9 million miles of Corning LEAF optical fiber for Aerie's planned 20,000-mile nationwide broadband network. The agreement is estimated to be worth in excess of $1 billion over the next four years. Aerie will install 432-fiber-count cable throughout the network, which will be the highest-capacity network built by a single company in the U.S., according to the company.

Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group (Murray Hill, NJ) has acquired Herrmann Technologies Inc. (Dallas) in a stock transaction for approximately 7.3 million shares of Lucent's common stock, valued at $438 million. The acquisition provides Lucent with thin-film process technology used to make passive optical filters for DWDM networks.

Allegro Property Inc. (Vancouver, BC) has completed its acquisition of Valdor Fiber Optics Inc. (San Jose). Valdor has also partnered with Sarnoff Corp. (Princeton, NJ) to develop a method to mechanically hermetically seal optoelectronic packages using Valdor's Impact Mount technology. The company has also signed a memorandum of understanding with LightPath Technologies Inc. (Warren, NJ), whereby Valdor will implement its Impact Mount technology to package and hermetically seal LightPath's fiber-to-fiber lens collimator products.

Broadband services provider Williams Communications (Tulsa, OK) will provide local transport services to support SBC Communications Inc.'s (San Antonio, TX) plan to extend services to markets outside its traditional wireline region. Per the 20-year agreement, Williams will provide SBC with transport services in six markets, including Atlanta, Boston, New York, Seattle, Denver, and Phoenix. Williams will also provide collocation services in Miami, Seattle, and New York. Additionally, Williams has executed a $27-million contract to provide capacity on its fiber-optic network to Infonet Services Corp. (El Segundo, CA). Infonet requires the additional capacity to support its previously announced $850-million global network expansion program.

Corvis Corp. (Columbia, MD) has completed its acquisition of Baylight Networks (Palo Alto, CA), optical-network access systems and subsystems designer. Baylight will move its employees and operations to Corvis's Maryland facility. Corvis also recently announced the acquisition of Algety Telecom (Lannion, France), which develops soliton-based, DWDM transmission systems.

Spectra-Physics Commercial Systems Group (Mountain View, CA) has been renamed Spectra-Physics Passive Components to reflect the company's emphasis on telecommunications components. The first product offering under the company's new name will be its Zeroshift 200-GHz narrow bandpass filters.

Kasten Chase (Toronto) and Alcatel (Paris) will partner to provide secure access solutions to the U.S. federal government market. Per the agreement, Kasten Chase will market, sell, distribute, and service Alcatel's virtual private network solution to government departments and agencies. The companies are also exploring the possibility of providing enhanced secure remote-access solutions through the combined application of their respective products.

CoreComm Ltd. (New York) has selected Corning Inc. (Corning, NY) to be the preferred supplier for optical fiber, cable, hardware, and fiber management systems throughout CoreComm's fiber-to-the-home broadband services network. CoreComm plans to deploy fiber-to-the-home networks in multiple-dwelling units in those cities where they currently operate, including Chicago, Cleveland, and Columbus, and will be initiating service in Detroit, New York, and Boston in the next several months. The initial deployments will include several thousand kilometers of Corning InfiniCor and SMF-28 optical fibers and associated Corning cable systems fiber management systems.

RIFOCS Corp. (Camarillo, CA) has been awarded a $14.1-million contract by the Space and Naval Welfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego. Per the five-year contract, RIFOCS will manufacture, test, and ship up to 270 units plus spares of its Global Positioning Fiber Optic Antenna Link (GPS FOAL) Subsystem to be used with SPAWAR's Navigation Sensor Systems Interface AN/SSN-6.

CiDRA Corp. (Wallingford, CT), developer of tunable photonic components and subsystems, has completed a $100-million round of equity funding, led by Amerindo Investment Advisors Inc. The financing will be used to improve CiDRA's manufacturing capacity as well as accelerate its product development activities to meet the demands of the optical-networking industry.

Teligent (Vienna, VA) will conduct a product trial of AirFiber Inc.'s (San Diego) OptiMesh network, which delivers high bandwidth over the air using invisible beams of light. Teligent is evaluating the OptiMesh equipment for providing carrier-grade, reliable, high-bandwidth services to customers in campus environments. The companies are conducting the trial in Washington, D.C.

Broadwing Communications (Cincin nati) has entered into an agreement with eLoyalty (Lake Forest, IL) to provide a dedicated private network, communications services, and data center collocation. eLoyalty will use Broadwing's services to support its hosted electronic Customer Relationship Management solution, Loyalty Foundation. Per the agreement, Broadwing will provide frame relay, dedicated Internet, and dedicated long-distance services over its coast-to-coast OC-48 IP backbone through its Austin, TX, data center collocation facility.

Lighthouse Communications Inc. (Des Moines, IA) has agreed to purchase ON 5000 Optical Services Nodes and the Onset network-management system from Astral Point Communications (Chelmsford, MA). Lighthouse will employ the ON 5000s in expanding its metro networks and regional footprint for high-density ATM and SONET concentration.

PMC Sierra Inc. (Burnaby, B.C.) will acquire fabless semiconductor company Malleable Technologies (San Jose). PMC Sierra will exchange approximately 1.2 million shares of stock for the 85% of Malleable Technologies it does not already own. Malleable's 40 employees will join PMC Sierra's Silicon Valley office. The acquisition will add high-density voice-over-packet DSP capabilities to PMC Sierra's architectural solutions for voice gateway and wireless equipment.

Lucent Technologies Inc. (Murray Hill, NJ) has signed a $330-million agreement with Metromedia Fiber Network Inc. (MFN-White Plains, NY) to install its AllWave and TrueWave RS fiber in MFN's networks in North America and Europe. The agreement is part of MFN's plan to install 3.6 million fiber-mi internationally by 2004.

Sycamore Networks (Chelmsford, MA) has created the SILVX Partner Program, designed to bring together best-of-breed integrated service solutions from a focused set of partners to enable carriers and service providers to deploy revenue-generating services directly from the optical network. The first program partners are Syndesis (Toronto), provider of automated service provisioning software, and CrossKeys Systems Corp. (Kanata, Ontario), a carrier-scale service assurance and network performance application provider.

Nortel Networks (Brampton, Ontario) and Juniper Networks Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) have formed an alliance to provide a combination of advanced optical and core routing solutions to help service providers and carriers build Internet infrastructures. Per the agreement, the companies will participate in joint marketing, network planning, and implementation. They will also adopt open, multi-vendor, end-to-end network-management and service provisioning.

Cable Design Technologies (Pittsburgh, PA) has opened a new facility in Longueuil, Quebec, to produce central-office and high-bandwidth network connectivity products. The facility is expected to have an annual capacity of approximately $30 million and will be operated by a new subsidiary, QuadLAN/CDT, reporting to the Mohawk/CDT division.

Williams Communications (Tulsa, OK) and KDD America Inc. (New York City) will interconnect their networks and collaborate on the development of several products, including a variety of network services, collocation/data center services, Internet Protocol-related services, and application services supporting the e-business environment. The five-year agreement includes a reciprocal provider relationship, wherein each company will first seek to obtain telecom services from the other. The companies will also cooperatively develop facilities that leverage their services.

Panduit Corp. (Tinley Park, IL) has formed an alliance with COLO.COM (Brisbane, CA) to provide network connectivity solutions to COLO.COM's

carrier-neutral collocation facilities. Panduit Network Connectivity Group will provide complete connectivity solutions, including crossconnection panels for twisted-pair, coaxial, and fiber cables. COLO.COM will also use Panduit's cable-management products throughout its facilities and work area outlet solutions.

Avanex Corp. (Fremont, CA) has signed a two-year contract with Cogent Communications (Washington, DC) to provide its PowerMux 16-channel Wavelength Channel Processor and PowerExchanger Optical Add/drop Multi plexing Processor for a bidirectional ring solution to help power Cogent's long-haul DWDM network. Cogent, an Internet

service provider, offers Internet access at approximately 100x the speed of a T1 connection, according to the company.

Nortel Networks (Brampton, Ontario) has announced a purchase agreement with Global Crossing Ltd. (Hamilton, Bermuda) to begin deployment of Nortel's OPTerra Long Haul 4000 Optical Line System. The West Coast portion of Global Crossing's network will initially carry multiple 10-Gbit/sec channels without the need for regeneration across a 1,450-km route from Seattle to Sacramento, CA. The optical add/drop multiplexing technology of Nortel's OPTerra will allow handoffs at intermediate sites along the way, according to the companies.

Broadwing Communications (Austin, TX) has signed a three-year, $7.5-million contract with Multacom (City of Industry, CA) to provide OC-3 network access and collocation services to connect 13 major U.S. cities, including Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, New York, and Washington, D.C. The deal gives Multacom a full OC-3 backbone in the U.S. to connect via undersea fiber-optic cables to its existing network in various Pacific Rim countries, including China and Taiwan.

Telergy Inc. (Syracuse, NY) will deploy Corning Inc.'s (Corning, NY) MetroCor fiber, created specifically for metropolitan and regional applications. The MetroCor fiber is G.655-compliant, singlemode, nonzero dispersion-shifted optical fiber that operates across the entire usable bandwidth from 1,280 nm to 1,625 nm. Telergy will begin deployment of the fiber in Syracuse.

Optical Solutions Inc. (Minneapolis) has been awarded a four-year, $16-million contract with Integrated Broadband Network (IBN-Indiana polis) to provide its FiberPath fiber-optic solution for fiber-to-the-home deployments. IBN chose the FiberPath solution because it is scalable to accommodate video on demand, enhanced security, home-office connectivity, and other high-bandwidth services.

SDL Inc. (San Jose) has entered into an agreement with Siemens Information and Communication Networks Group (Martinsreid, Germany) to supply high-speed optical modulators for Siemens 10-Gbit/sec DWDM transmission systems. SDL has been working with Siemens during the past year to supply modulators for the qualification and production ramp of their DWDM fiber-optic transmission system.

Evolution Networks (Atlanta) will build a high-capacity wholesale network that will enable telecommunications carriers and service providers to more efficiently serve Tier 2, 3, and 4 markets. The company is currently planning for the construction of at least 3,000 route-miles, 25 regional data centers, and 125 points-of-presence by the end of 2001. The network will extend from Culpepper, VA, to Bloomington, IL, and from Eau Claire, WI, to Bangor, ME.

Moritex Corp. (Tokyo) has created a subsidiary, Moritex Canada Inc. (Montreal), which will focus on expanding the company's telecommunications presence in North America. The subsidiary will market and sell optical sub-components such as quartz V-grooves, aspherical lenses, optical-fiber arrays, and erbium-doped optical fiber. Moritex Canada will also undertake a variety of research and development projects in conjunction with the National Optics Institute of Canada.

TRANSCAT Calibration Services (Rochester, NY) has added fiber-optic test and measurement instrumentation to its array of calibration capabilities. The company now offers calibration of test and measurement instruments used in the measurement of wavelength, optical loss, optical power, attenuation, and spectral purity.

INRANGE Technologies Corp. (Mount Laurel, NJ) has entered the SAN Solution Partner Program with Veritas Software (Mountain View, CA), provider of enterprise-class storage management software. Through this program, companies certify interoperability of their solutions, allowing users to plan for interoperable storage networks. Per the agreement, the companies will implement an interoperability environment with INRANGE's 64-port FC/9000 Fibre Channel Director and Veritas's SAN data availability and SAN management software solutions.

Celestica Inc. (Toronto, Ontario) and JDS Uniphase Corp. (San Jose) have entered an agreement whereby Celestica will provide contract optical subassembly services to JDS Uniphase for use in its optical amplifiers. The contract is part of JDS Uniphase's global capacity expansion program, which includes plant and employment expansion, productivity improvements, investments in automation, and increased use of outsourcing.

Flagstar Bank (Bloomfield, MI) has awarded Alcatel company Berk-Tek (New Holland, PA) a contract to provide all the fiber-optic backbone and enhanced UTP horizontal cabling for data and video applications throughout the bank's new world headquarters in Troy, MI. The new headquarters will have an ATM/Ethernet LAN with a star topology. It features an ATM core with an OC-6 and OC-12 fiber backbone within the buildings and 12 telecommunications closets. More than 7,000 feet of Berk-Tek 24-strand multimode and nearly 7,000 feet of 12-strand singlemode fiber are included.

Redback Networks Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) has named IBM (Armonk, NY) as one of its strategic technology suppliers. Per the agreement, IBM will supply its advanced semiconductor processes, including copper interconnect, to power ASICs in Redback Networks' SmartEdge 800 optical-networking equipment. Redback's ASIC technology portfolio enables customers to create and deliver customized services such as flexible bandwidth on demand, tiered qualities of service, virtual private networks, and security services.

Nx Networks (Herndon, VA) has provided its voice-over-Internet Protocol solutions to help maritime communications company Maritime Telecommunications Network (Miami) upgrade its existing communications infrastructure. Available on more than 40 cruise ships worldwide, the upgrade is expected to enhance voice quality for passengers making phone calls from ship to land.

Ciena Corp. (Linthicum, MD) has announced that telecommunications group Cable & Wireless is the first service provider to deploy Ciena's OC-192/ STM-64 10-Gbit/sec intelligent optical transport systems in metro networks. Cable & Wireless has installed the MultiWave Metro systems in Boston and New York to support its OC-192 links between those cities.

Silicon Laboratories Inc. (Austin, TX) has announced its entry into fiber-optic communications with the formal introduction of the Optical Networking Division, which will focus on developing the SiPHY family of high-speed physical-layer ICs. The new division has also announced its first product, the Si5020 clock and data recovery IC, which provides the essential clock and data recovery function for optical transceiver modules, digital cross connects, SONET/SDH/ATM routers, test equipment, and regenerators.

Fiber-optic passive component manufacturer, Global Opticom (Sunnyvale, CA) has completed construction of a 26,000-square-foot facility in China. The company is also adding 28,000 square feet to its corporate headquarters, to be used almost exclusively for new-product lines featuring DWDM/ OADM technology.

Gould Fiber Optics (Millersville, MD), provider of passive fiber-optic components for the telecommunications industry, has opened a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in New Freedom, PA. The facility will support the company's Integrated Products and Services (IPS) Group in the manufacture of custom-designed modules as well as the testing of repackaged devices. When fully staffed, the facility will employ approximately 150 workers.

Fiber Optic Network Solutions (FONS) Corp. (Northboro, MA) has raised $15 million in equity funding from Morgen thaler and Intel Capital. The funding will be used to expand the company's manufacturing capabilities and product development.

Broadband gateway solutions provider Cayman Systems Inc. (Billerica, MA) has secured an additional $10 million in private financing. Charles River Ventures led the funding, followed by Anaconda Capital Management LLC, and Proxim Inc. Cayman also received a $5-million working capital line of credit with Silicon Valley Bank. The funding will be used to expand sales and customer care.

Alcatel (Paris) has been awarded a EURO 7.5 million contract from German telecommunications provider Tension Communikationsnetze Südwest GmbH & Co. (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) to expand Tension's fiber-optic network to link 14 cities in Germany, including Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Munich, and Hamburg. Alcatel will supply, install, and commission its Optinex multiservice nodes and Optinex 32-channel DWDM system, which will operate at 10 Gbits/sec and support five million simultaneous telephone conversations. Alcatel has also announced plans to triple the capacity of its production plants over the next two years. In addition, Alcatel will acquire Innovative Fibers Inc. (Gatineau, Canada), a DWDM optical filter manufacturer, for $175 million. Alcatel will market Innovative Fibers' existing standalone products and will also integrate the technology into its portfolio of optical interface and amplifier modules.

Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ) has signed a contract with Tele komunikacja Polska S.A. (TP S.A-Poland) to construct a high-capacity optical backbone network, linking 20 cities in Poland. The DWDM-based network initially will be used to provide traditional telephony services to TP S.A.'s residential, business, and service-provider customers. Eventually, the network will be responsible for all of TP S.A.'s traffic, including IP, ATM, and other advanced services. The approximate value of the contract is $16.9 million.

Globix Corp. (New York), provider of Internet services and connectivity for businesses in the United States and Europe, has purchased an STM-16 ring network on Viatel Inc.'s (New York) pan-European network. The purchase includes collocation space in several of Viatel's collocation centers and increases the capacity of the Globix network connecting London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Paris. In addition, PSINet (Ashburn, VA) has purchased 14,000 km of dark fiber on Viatel's network. The contract includes collocation space in more than 50 of Viatel's collocation centers and points-of-presence and is expected to extend PSINet's IP-optimized network reach, capacity, and hosting center connectivity throughout Western Europe.

Independent global carriers' carrier FLAG Telecom (London) has entered into a strategic partnership with fixed-line operator New T&T (Hong Kong) to further strengthen New T&T's building e-connections strategy and extend FLAG Telecom's network services to the center of Hong Kong. Per the agreement, both companies will provide network services to the international carrier community and ISPs from Hong Kong to many international business centers.

France Telecom (Paris) plans to test DWDM technology for delivery of next-generation services using a metropolitan optical Internet solution from Nortel Networks (Brampton, Ontario). The companies have signed a letter of intent to deploy the Nortel OPTera Metro 5200 multiservice platform for a two-month trial. France Telecom anticipates live testing in a corporate customer environment this month.

Bookham Technology plc (Oxfordshire, UK) has partnered with Marconi Communications (London) to supply multichannel DWDM integrated optical components for use in Marconi's SmartPhotonix range of optical-networking products. Marconi will use Bookham Technology's ASOC technology in its Optical Channel Monitor, which manages the data in the system in real time by monitoring the power carried by each wavelength.

The Siemens Information and Communications Network Group (Munich, Germany) has received an order from telecommunications operator Enitel (Norway) to supply its DWDM platform TransXpress Infinity MTS. Per the agreement, Siemens will install its platform along the Oslo-Bergen, Bergen-Trondheim, and London-Lowestoft routes. Siemens will be responsible for consulting, planning, installing, and maintaining the system.

Mexican long-distance telecommunications carrier Avantel-MCI WorldCom (Mexico City) has contracted Alcatel (Paris) to build a terrestrial fiber-optic backbone network along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Alcatel will supply, install, and maintain its new Optinex Synchronous Digital Hierarchy core system on the 1,370-km network, which will link 10 cities from Veracruz to Cancun and will be connected to Miami, FL, through the Cancun node.

BICCGeneral (Highland Heights, KY) will acquire the business of AXA S.A. de C.V.'s (Nuevo Laredo, Mexico) subsidiaries, Telmag and Telmag Internacional, located in Tlaxcala, Mexico. The Telmag businesses manufacture telecommunication, central-office, and data-networking cables. The acquisition is expected to give BICCGeneral a larger presence in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

Guatemalan carriers' carrier Navega.com expects to invest $100 million from now until year-end 2001 to deploy a nationwide fiber-optic network. Nortel Networks (Ontario, Canada) will provide switching and transmission equipment, and Alcatel (Paris) will supply the cable. Navega.com expects to retain both companies for the entire build-out, which will extend to El Salvador and the rest of Central America in 2002.

Lucent Technologies Inc. (Murray Hill, NJ) has signed a multimillion-dollar agreement with Puerto Rico Telephone Company (San Juan) for its Smart LGX fiber test and surveillance system, the first installation of the system outside the continental U.S. Lucent has installed the system at Puerto Rico Telephone Com pany's central office in Caparra, with additional installations to follow.

Telstra Corp. (Sydney, Australia) has partnered with Cisco Systems (San Jose) to create an inter-capital multimedia network capable of delivering Gigabit Ether net services to corporate customers. Dubbed the "EpiCentre," the network has been built using Cisco equipment from end-to-end and will be marketed by both companies as a Cisco Powered Network. They plan to launch the network later this year. Telstra has also announced plans to expand its global IP network backbone, beginning with the installation of four additional points-of-presence in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles. The company also plans to extend their backbone to London and Japan, where they are in the process of establishing major Internet nodes.

Burlington, MA-based CyOptics Inc. has opened a new development and manufacturing facility in Yokneam, Israel, to produce its transmission components for 40-Gbit/sec and ultra-long-haul transmission. The new building will house cleanrooms and equipment for optoelectronic device packaging, test, burn-in, and qualification, in addition to development labs and expanded office space.