NEW FEATURES FOR ADVA OPTICAL NETWORKING'S FSP 2000 PROMOTE COST REDUCTION AND NETWORK FLEXIBILITY

Martinsried/Munich, Germany; Mahwah/New Jersey, USA. December 17, 2002. ADVA Optical Networking (German Neuer Markt: ADV), a leading global provider of optical networking solutions, today announced a major release of new features for its Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 2000 product platform. These new features include a universal card with a small form pluggable (SFP) transceiver and an SFP transceiver for the 2:1 Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) card. Advantageous for partners, large enterprises, and carrier customers, these features enable them to improve delivery times, simplify network planning, reconfigure applications more easily, dramatically reduce spares inventory for the FSP 2000, and thereby lower total network investment.

The new universal card supports all typical enterprise protocols for speeds ranging from 100Mbit/s to 2.5Gbit/s on a single card with full clocking and rate control, instead of requiring separate cards for specific groups of protocols. The SFP transceiver on the universal board card adapts to either 850nm or 1310nm requirements, replacing cards with fixed local interfaces for either 850nm or 1310nm. Large customers transporting a wide variety of traffic across their networks can now flexibly meet their evolving network demands with existing cards in place, requiring fewer spares on hand and minimizing their expenditures.

The new SFP transceiver has also been implemented into the FSP 2000's 2:1 TDM card that aggregates any combination of two high-speed Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet services on a common 2.5Gbit/s wavelength. Similar to the benefit provided for the universal card, the pluggable transceiver for the 2:1 TDM card adapts to either 850nm or 1310nm requirements.

"We are one of the first vendors on the market today offering such innovative features for our FSP 2000 system - specifically developed with our partners' and customers' input," remarked Brian P. McCann, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at ADVA Optical Networking. "ADVA will continue to move quickly to deliver the best technology in our solutions that expand service offerings and reduce total cost of ownership."

ADVA's FSP 2000 was launched in May 2001 as the successor product to the company's best-selling FSP-II product, and more than 1,000 systems have already been sold. Now in its fifth major new feature release, the FSP 2000 provides a seamless upgrade path from the FSP-II, also sold by Cisco Systems as the Metro 1500. Targeted toward enterprises and carriers, parallel use of Coarse/Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (C/DWDM) and TDM technology enable up to 256 applications to be transported over one single fiber pair. Its robust character and ability to transport all protocols between 8Mbit/s and 10Gbit/s make the FSP 2000 an ideal solution particularly for large-scale, high-bandwidth storage networks.

The new FSP 2000 features are generally available for shipment to customers starting this week.

ABOUT ADVA OPTICAL NETWORKING
ADVA Optical Networking is a leading global provider of optical networking solutions for rapid and cost-effective provisioning of high-speed data, storage, voice, and video services in the metropolitan area. ADVA's carrier-class portfolio is comprised of the Fiber Service Platform family of products - explicitly designed to ensure the lowest total cost of ownership. ADVA's solutions have been deployed at over 68 carriers and service providers (including PTTs, RBOCs, LECs, and IXCs) and more than 500 enterprises worldwide. ADVA's products are sold through an international network of blue-chip distribution partners in addition to its own direct sales force. Further information about ADVA Optical Networking: www.advaoptical.com.