10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance Hosts World's First Multi-Vendor 10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology Demonstration.

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2001

18 Companies Unite at NetWorld+Interop to Showcase 10 GbE Products

The 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance today announced that it is hosting the world's first multi-vendor 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology demonstration at the NetWorld+Interop show this week in Atlanta, Georgia. A diverse collection of 10 Gigabit Ethernet products from 18 industry-leading network vendors comprise the demonstration, which can be seen at the 10 GEA booth No. 2257 in the Georgia World Congress Center, September 11-13. 10 GEA member companies whose products are on display in the booth include: Agilent, AMCC, Avaya, Inc., Broadcom, Corp., CDT Corp., Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Inc., Foundry Networks, Intel Corp., Ixia, Lucent Technologies, MindSpeed, Nortel Networks, PMC-Sierra, Inc., Picolight, Spirent Communications, Tyco Electronics, and Velio Communications.

In addition to the 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology demonstration, the 10 GEA will offer a general session at NetWorld+Interop on Wednesday, September 12th from 2:00 - 5:00 in room 260W. During the session, member company representatives will share their perspectives on the 10 Gigabit Ethernet value proposition, its role in the LAN, MAN, and WAN, and related implementation issues.

This week's 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology demonstration is comprised of a comprehensive range of products including systems, test equipment, components and cabling. Multiple 10 Gigabit Ethernet technologies are included in a live demonstration, including five of the seven port types specified in the IEEE 802.3ae (10 GbE) draft: 10GBASE-LR, 10GBASE-LW, 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE-EW and 10GBASE-ER. These port types include three of the four optical transceivers, or PMDs. As part of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology demonstration, several companies are showing chip-to-chip communication over the IEEE 802.3ae XAUI interface.

"We are pleased to host such a significant technology demonstration," commented Bob Grow, Chairman of the Board of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and Engineering Fellow at Intel Corp. "This collection of products and technologies is the result of years of industry collaboration. This demonstration moves us to the next phase of 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology - deploying products in multi-vendor networks around the world."

In preparation for this week's technology demonstration, participating companies gathered at Key3Media's NetWorld+Interop hot stage facility in Belmont, California last month. During the hot stage, vendors worked together to construct a variety of networks and one-on-one connections. This week's demo is the result of their collaboration and hard work.

"On behalf of the 10 GEA, I would like to thank Key3Media for allowing us to use its NetWorld+Interop Northern California hot stage facility. Participating member companies gathered from all over the world to prepare for this week's show. We are pleased to showcase this one-of-a-kind demonstration at NetWorld+Interop," stated Mark Fishburn, Vice President and Chairman of the 10 GEA's Marketing, and Test and Demonstration Committees, and Vice President of Technical Strategy for Spirent Communications.

The 10 GEA's technology demonstration is in keeping with its mission to provide resources to establish and demonstrate multi-vendor interoperability of 10 Gigabit Ethernet products and to provide technical contributions to the IEEE 802.3ae Task Force.

About 10 Gigabit Ethernet

Positioned as a high-speed, unifying technology for networking applications in LANs, MANs, and WANs, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will provide simple, high bandwidth at relatively low cost. In LAN applications, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will enable organizations to scale their packet-based networks from 10 Mbps to 10,000 Mbps, thereby leveraging their investments in Ethernet. In MAN and WAN applications, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will enable service providers and others to create extremely high-speed links at very low cost.

About the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance

The 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance was organized to facilitate and accelerate the introduction of 10 Gigabit Ethernet into the networking market. It was founded by networking industry leaders: 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO), Extreme Networks (Nasdaq:EXTR), Intel (Nasdaq:INTC), Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT), Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW), and World Wide Packets. Additionally, the Alliance supports the activities of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet committee, fosters the development of the 802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet) standard, and promotes interoperability among 10 Gigabit Ethernet products. For more information, visit their web site at http://www.10gea.org.