Lucent Technologies Announces Industry's First All-Optical Cross Connect

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 06, 1997

MURRAY HILL, N.J. -- Lucent Technologies announced today the industry's first All-Optical Cross Connect that delivers quicker recovery from service interruptions, significant savings in operating costs, higher reliability and greater administrative flexibility.

The Optical Cross Connect allows service providers to efficiently move wavelengths from point to point in their network without making unnecessary and costly conversions along the way. Managing wavelengths at the optical level is less costly than dropping down to the electrical level because the cost of the electrical devices is eliminated. In addition reliability is increased and operations costs are decreased because fewer network elements such as back-to-back terminals are required.

The Optical Cross Connect also provides the important service restoration capabilities found in today's Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET) layer. In particular, in the event of catastrophic failures, services can be restored at the wavelength level using an Optical Cross-Connect, potentially delivering much faster restoration than today's electrical restoration schemes.

"The idea of an all-optical network and its promise of cost effective unlimited bandwidth has been a concept found only in research papers and labs - until now, " said Richard Moscioni, SONET Business Management Vice President. "Deploying an all-optical network takes more than just technology or more wavelengths. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is just the ticket to entry for optical networking. Service providers are demanding a level of network expertise in their vendors that includes total network solutions. Lucent Technologies is uniquely positioned to provide this complete package to our customers."

The Optical Cross Connect continues the migration to an all-optical network that Lucent began in 1995 with the introduction of its Optical Line System - Lucent's Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) product. Lucent Technologies is the worldwide leader in optical networking with thousands of amplifiers and hundreds of systems shipped to customers worldwide.

The Optical Cross Connect will be demonstrated at Lucent Technologies' booth #3549 at SuperComm '97 in New Orleans from June 3-5. Lucent's SONET Business Group demonstration at SuperComm '97 will focus on three areas: Bell Lab's Innovations; Optical Networking Solutions (including the Optical Cross Connect); seamlessly integrating embedded SONET systems to deliver all services (Voice, Data and Video) over one network.

The Optical Cross Connect builds upon Lucent's long-standing research efforts on DWDM and optical networking including Lucent's participation in the Multiwavelength Optical Networking (MONET) Consortium.

The Optical Cross Connect will be available in limited production in third quarter '97. Lucent will be working closely with customers to determine features and functionality for future releases.

Lucent Technologies designs, builds, and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. More information about Lucent Technologies, headquartered at Murray Hill, N.J., is available at http://www.lucent.com.

For more information, reporters may contact:

Kabby Hong 303-290-2641 (work) 303-779-0977 (home) Email:khong@lucent.com

Jane Moulton 908-582-7658 (work) 201-763-7017 (home) Email:jmoulton@lucent.com