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Date: 25th March 2003
OFS AND TRANSMODE TO DEMONSTRATE 16-CHANNEL CWDM SOLUTION FOR METRO NETWORKS

Commercial Solution Further Increases Capacity, Helps Reduce Costs in Metropolitan Edge and Access Networks

OFC, Booth 2141, Atlanta, Georgia, March 25th, 2003 - OFS, designer, manufacturer, and supplier of leading edge fiber optic products, and Transmode Systems AB, a supplier of Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) equipment, today announced the demonstration of a commercial 16-channel CWDM solution.

The demonstration, using OFS' ground-breaking AllWave¨ fiber, a zero water peak fiber, and Transmode's T1600 CWDM system will be conducted in OFS' booth #2141 at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC) being held here this week. This high-channel solution can help reduce metropolitan network operating costs by as much as 65 percent compared to DWDM technology.

"AllWave fiber is uniquely designed for metro applications and provides the lowest loss across the entire spectrum, as well as zero water peak loss," said Nick Khoury, President, Optical Fiber Division, OFS. "Combined with Transmode's T1600, this solution enables maximum system reach and loss budget over the highest CWDM channel count available anywhere."

The OFC demonstration displays 16-wavelength transmission from 1310 nm to 1610 nm, using 20 nm spacing between wavelengths as specified in ITU G.694.2, over AllWave fiber. This contrasts with typical 4 or 8 wavelength CWDM systems aimed at conventional single mode fiber installations. However, scalability to 16 wavelengths CWDM is critical for future bandwidth growth at a lower first cost compared to DWDM.

Multi-service and multi-protocol traffic, such as Gigabit Ethernet, Fiber Channel, and SONET/SDH on bit rates from 2.5 Gb/s onwards are supported with the greatest flexibility with the zero water peak and low 1625 nm loss of AllWave fiber. Additionally, more wavelengths give carriers flexibility to reserve CWDM wavelengths for future DWDM expansion without service interruption.

"Metro carriers looking for ways of reducing their expenditure find CWDM better suited for their requirements, and better suited for their budget, than DWDM systems," said Isaac Olasoko, CEO of Transmode Systems. "With the continued development of CWDM technology and products from frontrunners like OFS and Transmode, network providers can reap more economic benefits at the metro level while maintaining the same security, reliability and quality as a DWDM system."

OFS' AllWave fiber is the industry's first zero water peak fiber that provides for Full-Spectrumä use in the 1260-1625 nm region. The elimination of the water peak in AllWave fiber provides best-in-class loss performance throughout the whole spectrum (with 33 -50% increase in bandwidth capacity) and improves PMD performance in cables. Zero water peak enables cost effective CWDM operation in the 1400 nm band, facilitating the use of low-cost uncooled lasers and less stringent filter specifications, all of which significantly help reduce system costs. Furthermore, increased bandwidth, and compatibility with existing network architectures, makes AllWave fiber a superior choice for metropolitan and access optical networks.

For further information, please contact:
Lars Bergström
Marketing Communications Manager
Phone: +46-8-506 88 225
Email: lars.bergstrom@transmode.se
Fax: +46-8-506 88 299

About Transmode Systems Transmode Systems (www.transmode.com) is a CWDM pioneer, with expertise in datacom and telecom networking, optical technologies and network management systems. Since 2000, Transmode has focused on CWDM as a key optical technology to fully exploit the existing networking protocols. Transmode has been shipping CWDM systems since March 2001 and has today customers on the European, US and Asian markets.

Olga Shmuklyer
PR for OFS
Phone: 770.798.3726
Email: ofspr@ofsoptics.com

About OFS OFS is a designer, manufacturer, and supplier of leading edge optical fiber, optical fiber cable, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products for high-speed optical networks. OFS, formerly the optical fiber solutions division of Lucent Technologies [NYSE: LU], has a proven track record of being first in the industry with application specific fibers, optical connectors, ribbon cables, erbium doped fibers, Raman fiber lasers and more. OFS is committed to providing customers increased value by offering products that deliver lowest cost per bit network solutions, protecting investments through future flexible solutions.

OFS distributes its optical fiber, optical fiber cable, optical connectivity and specialty photonics products directly to end users, as well as through valued distributors and external cable customers and equipment vendors.

Two shareholders, Furukawa Electric, a multi-billion dollar global leader in optical communications and majority shareholder, and CommScope, a world leader in broadband coaxial cables and minority shareholder, own OFS. Headquartered in Norcross, GA, OFS operates facilities in Avon, Connecticut; Carrollton, Georgia; Somerset, NJ; and Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as well as facilities in Denmark, Germany, Russia and Brazil.

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