Aegis Lightwave Acquires CardinalPoint Optics.

WOBURN, Mass. and CLINTON, N.J. -- Aegis Lightwave, a company focused exclusively on providing a wide range of optical monitoring solutions to the fiber-optics communications industry, announced today the acquisition of CardinalPoint Optics, an emerging leader in next-generation optical channel monitors. The acquisition augments Aegis' product portfolio with optical channel monitors featuring advanced capabilities and lays the foundation of a center of excellence in central New Jersey.

The product lines combine under one company to represent the most comprehensive offering of optical channel monitors on the market. The combined solutions exhibit a rich feature set available in various form-factors, including embedded sub-systems, standalone modules, portable instruments and carrier-grade systems. The product suite will expand to include new advanced signal quality monitoring functions that will be necessary to realize the performance monitoring requirements of optical networks as they increase in capacity and flexibility, while retaining their optical transparency.

"We continue to dedicate our company to addressing the complex challenges of optical performance monitoring that we envision in the future," said Jeff Farmer, President and CEO, Aegis Lightwave. "Our customers will continue to benefit from product innovations coming out of our laboratories as they architect future generations of optical systems."

Aegis is the only company and the largest product design team exclusively dedicated to optical channel monitors. With several technology platforms now available, Aegis can provide each customer with a tailored solution to any application. Each technology platform delivers best-in-class performance at a cost that proves-in the economics of distributed optical monitoring.

"We are eager to build on Aegis' past and present successes with large-scale deployments of optical channel monitors in ROADM-based networks," said Chris Koeppen, Vice President and General Manager, Aegis-NJ. "We plan to take optical monitoring technology to a new level with an exciting new series of products that will serve the needs of high-speed and optically-switched networks."

As electrical regeneration recedes from the transport layer, the requirements for monitoring signal integrity is migrating to the optical layer to maintain the crucial capabilities of fault management. Channel monitors will progressively take on a more prominent role in keeping optical systems user-friendly and manageable, as equipment vendors take on the optical design challenges ushered in by optical mesh network architectures and per-wavelength throughputs of up to 100 Gb/s and beyond.

About Aegis([R]) Lightwave, Inc.

Aegis Lightwave is a privately held company that builds a wide range of cost-effective optical channel monitors for the fiber-optics communications industry. Aegis supplies low-cost DWDM channel monitoring solutions in various form-factors, including components, modules and systems. Aegis is backed by leading investors and venture capitalists including Vesbridge Partners, Alta Partners, Technology Venture Partners and Megunticook Management. The company is located in Woburn, Massachusetts and Clinton, New Jersey, USA. More information can be viewed at www.aegislightwave.com.