January 16, 2003--BT Ignite, a British Telecom subsidiary and provider of broadband and IP data solutions, has launched a 2.5-Gbit service in the UK market using the Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 2000 from ADVA Optical Networking. Branded as the WaveStream Connect, BT Ignite's new service is targeted at enterprises with high-bandwidth requirements and heavy data traffic for LAN and SAN applications over their networks.

ADVA's FSP 2000 employs parallel use of Coarse and Dense WDM (C/DWDM) and TDM technology to enable up to 256 applications to be transported over one single fiber pair. Its robust character and ability to transport all protocols between 8 Mbit/sec and 10 Gbit/sec make the FSP 2000 an ideal solution particularly for large-scale, high-bandwidth storage networks, say company representatives. Newly released features for the FSP 2000 include a universal card and small form pluggable (SFP) transceivers.

"Large organizations face comprehensive communications networks today which need to be efficiently and cost-effectively managed," notes Alan Davies, manager, Short Haul Data Services, BT Ignite. "Our mission at BT Ignite is to minimize this burden for customers by providing the most reliable and advanced data services over the largest optical network infrastructure in the UK. The new 2.5-Gbit WaveStream Connect service is targeted specifically to meet increasing customer demand for the transportation of high-bandwidth storage data over high speeds to secure remote back-up sites."

For more information about ADVA Optical Networking (Munich, Germany, and Mahwah, NJ), visit the company's Web site at www.advaoptical.com.