Press Releases

Japan Telecom and CALIENT Technologies Begin Pre-Deployment Staging for Next-Generation All-Optical Network

Tokyo, Japan and San Jose, Calif., November 6, 2001 – Japan Telecom (TSE:9434), one of Asia's most progressive service providers, and CALIENT Technologies, a leading developer of intelligent, all-photonic switching systems, have announced pre-deployment staging for the carrier's all-optical switched network. After one year's joint work on network design and pre-testing, the companies are moving into end-to-end network configuration and interoperability staging with CALIENT's DiamondWave™ system, Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) protocol code stack, and Cisco Systems' GSR routers.

Mr. Tetsuya Yuge, Japan Telecom managing director in its Information and Communication Laboratories, stated, "Photonic switching and GMPLS networking are essential to Japan Telecom, to support our rapidly growing data traffic at dramatically reduced cost and to create new services. CALIENT Technologies is one of the leading developers to successfully complete testing and demonstration of GMPLS across a multi-vendor photonically switched network. We plan to leverage their performance leadership in our commercial networks."

"We are gratified to have such a strategic relationship with Japan Telecom, and to be part of this important program," said Charles Corbalis, CALIENT president and CEO. "Our teams have successfully completed many lab tests and demonstrations to characterize network performance and savings. DiamondWave and GMPLS are proving their ability to meet Japan Telecom's stringent requirements in reliability, scalability and economics. The combination of gigabit routing, advanced DWDM system technology and photonic switching will take high-speed carrier network performance to a new level."

The pre-deployment staging work begun in October is expected to be completed in late December 2001, encompassing all functional staging of the photonic switching system, rigorous production-level testing of redundancy, reliability, non-stop software operating system testing and interoperability with Cisco GSR routers and GMPLS software.

About Japan Telecom
In operation since 1986, Japan Telecom serves nearly 20 million users through its Internet and voice services. Its diversified next-generation nationwide network, "PRISM" (first IP-backbone being operational in Japan), guarantees high quality data transmission services such as SOLTERIA (IP-VPN service) and ODN (Internet connection services) product lines. For more information, visit www.japan-telecom.co.jp/english

About CALIENT Technologies
CALIENT Technologies is a leading developer of intelligent, all-photonic switching systems and software that help service providers scale their networks for explosive bandwidth demands and deliver new wavelength services. CALIENT's architecture and DiamondWave(tm) switching system provide a seamless, 'opto-electronic-to-photonic' migration path that is non-disruptive to legacy operations, and near-term opportunity for carriers to offer revenue-generating optical services from their photonic infrastructure. Founded in March 1999, the company is headquartered in San Jose, California. For additional information about CALIENT, visit www.calient.net.

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