ADVISORY/Agility Co-Founder & CTO, Dr. Larry Coldren, Invited to Present At Prestigious Opticon 2001 Conference.

Business/Assignment Editors

ADVISORY...for Thursday (Aug. 16)

--(BUSINESS WIRE)

Media are invited to hear Dr. Larry Coldren, co-founder, CTO, and chairman of the board of Agility Communications(TM), Inc., speak at the Opticon 2001 conference on Thurs., Aug. 16, 2001 at 8:00 a.m. at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, Calif. Opticon 2001, sponsored by Business Communications Review and Light Reading.com, is a conference and exhibition focused on optical networking technologies, systems, and markets. The second annual Opticon conference will highlight several topics including key issues for carriers, next-generation telecom equipment, and optical components.

Coldren will be a featured panelist in the conference's components track Analyst Hour: Integrated Optics. He will join moderator Charles Willhoit, Senior Equity Analyst, Communications Components, J.P. Morgan H&Q, in discussing the latest trends in the optical components industry. Agility, the award-winning leader of widely tunable lasers for metro, switching, and long-haul markets, recently announced successful integration of an Electro-absorption Modulator (EAM) onto its widely tunable, Sampled-Grating Distributed Bragg Reflector (SG-DBR) laser technology. Agility's SG-DBR platform, the first commercially viable architecture to integrate many functions on a single chip, supports the 2.5- and 10-gigabit markets across the full C-band, while meeting requirements of reliability and low cost.

When and Where

Media are invited to hear Dr. Larry Coldren, panelist, Analyst Hour: Integrated Optics panel at the Opticon 2001 conference on Thurs., Aug. 16, 8:00 a.m. to 9: 15 a.m. at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, Calif. For more information about Agility, visit: http://agility.com. For more information about the conference visit: http://www.bcr.com/opticon/thursday.asp

Biography for Larry Coldren, Chairman of the Board, CTO, and Co-founder

Larry Coldren co-founded Agility Communications, Inc. in October 1998. He is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities and experts in the fields of vertical-cavity and in-plane laser research. In his 30-year career, Coldren has made substantial contributions to the academic and private industry sectors. He is well known as the author of the defining textbook in this field, leading to significant scientific advancements in the industry. In 1990, he co-founded a successful startup company, OCI (now Gore Photonics) which focuses on VCSEL development. Previously at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he worked on guided surface-acoustic-wave devices, microfabrication techniques, and tunable diode lasers. For more than 15 years, Coldren has been a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and director of the Heterogeneous Optical Technology Center. He has worked with and been a mentor to hundreds of students studying the latest developments in optoelectronic materials and devices. He is now focusing his efforts on components and fabrication techniques for III-V optoelectronic integrated circuits. His research group has made significant contributions to vertical-cavity lasers and widely tunable, high-power lasers. Coldren is a well-known speaker and author of numerous research papers and publications, including his most recent book, Diode Lasers and Photonic Integrated Circuits. Coldren has bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Bucknell University. He also holds a master's degree and doctorate degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

About Agility Communications

Agility Communications, Inc., the leader in pioneering widely tunable lasers for metro, switching, and long-haul markets, is providing the lowest total cost of ownership and dramatically reducing the costs and complexity of supporting agile networks. The company has been named one of Light Reading's Top 10 Privately Held Companies, has won the Technologic Partners' Optix 2001 Investor's Choice award, and was listed in UPSIDE Magazine's "Hot 100" private companies for 2001.

Founded by a team of optical networking and semiconductor veterans in Oct. 1998, Agility is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California and has manufacturing facilities in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Agility investors include Amerindo Investment Advisors, Comdisco Ventures, Dell Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Mustang Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Worldview Technology Partners. For more information about Agility solutions visit www.agility.com, send email to [e-mail] or call 805/690-1700.

Note to Editors: Agility Communications and the Agility logo are trademarks of Agility Communications, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and product names mentioned are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.