Avici Systems Promotes Panditi and Kaufman; Announces New Board Member.

Business/Technology Editors

N. BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2001

Avici Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: AVCI), a leading provider of scalable core routing solutions for intelligent IP-over-optical networks, today announced at its Annual Shareholders Meeting that its Board of Directors has elected Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Surya Panditi, to the position of Chairman and Steve Kaufman, President and Chief Operating Officer, to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer. Both promotions are effective July 1, 2001. Jim Swartz, Co-Chairman, will remain on the Board of Directors. Avici Systems also announced that Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO of Comstellar Technologies, has agreed to join Avici's Board. Ahuja's nomination is expected to be confirmed at the Company's next Board of Directors meeting.

"These promotions acknowledge the great job done by both Surya and Steve in managing Avici's transition from a private to a public company", said Swartz. "It has been tremendously exciting to have led the Board from Avici's formation to its current position as a market leader in backbone routers. Now is the time to turn over the reins to operating management. These changes establish a management structure and define responsibilities that will enable Avici to aggressively pursue the tremendous market opportunity available to it and to execute effectively on the strategic and operating challenges that lie ahead. In his role as Chairman, Surya will focus on longer-term company strategy as well as building and creating relationships with new and existing customers and business partners. In his role as President and CEO, Steve will have complete operating responsibility and focus on the execution of the business plan."

Panditi joined Avici in June 1997 as President and CEO and led the Company's growth and development as it made its transition to a public company in July 2000. He has been Co-Chairman since January 2001. Prior to Avici, Panditi was Vice President and General Manager of the LAN Infrastructure Business Unit at US Robotics. Previous to US Robotics, his experience includes many years at Intel, Ungermann-Bass and Telco Systems, where he was Vice President and General Manager of the Magnalink Communications Division.

Kaufman joined Avici in late July 2000 as its Chief Operating Officer to spearhead operations, and has been President since January 2001. Prior to Avici, Kaufman was President of Lucent's multiservice core networks division. Previously, he was Vice President and General Manager of core switching and Vice President of product management for Lucent's carrier networks division and was also a General Manager in Lucent's microelectronics group, now known as Agere Systems. Prior to Lucent, he worked at Intel Corporation where he held a variety of marketing management roles on the Pentium processor family of products.

Swartz is General Partner and Founder of Accel Partners, the lead investor in Avici, and has been Avici's Chairman, since the Company's formation in 1996. Swartz has been active in venture capital since the early 1970's. He has been Director for over forty successful companies and has been closely involved as lead investor with the emergence of numerous industry pioneering firms. Before founding Accel Partners, Swartz was founding General Partner of Adler & Company.

Ahuja is the Chief Executive Officer of Comstellar Technologies, and a founding member of the company. Before starting Comstellar, Ahuja was President and Chief Operating Officer of Telcordia Technologies (formerly "Bellcore" or Bell Communications Research). Previously, Ahuja held increasingly responsible positions at IBM in various areas of software development, design and marketing. Among other accomplishments, he directed IBM's entry into the distributed systems management and telecommunications management marketplaces. Ahuja is a former or present member of the Board of Directors for numerous companies, including Telcordia, SAIC, Computervision, Danet, Tecsi, and Network Appliance. He is a founding member of the Editorial Advisory Board of America's Network magazine.

About Avici Systems

Avici Systems Inc., headquartered in North Billerica, Mass., is a developer of next-generation Internet backbone platforms that optimize and drive creation of all-optical "speed-of-light" networks. Designed to bring packet intelligence to the core of optical networks, Avici's technologies offer superior scalability, resiliency and port density enabling just-in-time bandwidth provisioning, high reliability and the quality of service needed for carriers and ISPs to support mission-critical applications of the future. Visit Avici's World Wide Website at http://www.avici.com.

Avici and TSR are registered trademarks of Avici Systems Inc.

This release contains information about Avici's future expectations, plans, and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. When used in this press release, the word "will", "expected" and other similar expressions are intended to identify such forward looking statements.

Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, market acceptance of Avici products, services and enhancements, customer purchasing patterns and commitments, development of the market place, product development and enhancement, intensity of competition of other vendors, technological changes and other risks set forth in Avici's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.