BROADWING COMMUNICATIONS PERFORMS FIELD TRIAL ON CORWAVE SUITE.

Broadwing Communications has performed a field trial on the CorWave suite of all-optical products, to deploy a coast-to-coast fiber optic network.

The CorWave product family provides end-to-end optical network solution and also supports both 2.5 and 10 gigabits per second. It offers the high-capacity all-optical switching, transport and network management required for next-generation, terabit IP networks.

The CorWave products will allow Broadwing to transmit optical signals up to 3,200 km without electrical regeneration and provides state of the art optical network management software to provision ultra-long optical paths without field intervention.

"Broadwing's pressure points have been and will continue to be scalable capacity, faster provisioning of high capacity circuits, lower cost per bit and flexibility of network design which can support a variety of fiber types," said Rick Pontin, Broadwing Communications president and chief operating officer.

"Corvis' proposition addresses these business drivers. We are looking to perform an in-depth evaluation of the Corvis solution during the field trial."

"The challenge for carriers has been keeping up with the soaring demand for bandwidth in the most cost effective manner, while providing the highest quality service," said Dr. David Huber, president and CEO of Corvis.

"Our innovative suite of optical products allows carriers, with a range of fiber types, to scale easily to several terabits of capacity while dramatically reducing the time required to deliver high speed applications and services."

The Corvis solution is exceptionally flexible, enabling communication companies to build a single, unified network to carry all kinds of traffic, including mission critical Internet Protocol, Asynchronous Transfer Mode, high capacity digital video or voice traffic.

By delivering high-capacity all-optical switching, transport and network management, the CorWave suite of products transport 160 densely-packed OC-48/OC-48 (c) or 40 OC-192/OC-192(c) optical channels without electrical regeneration for up to 3,200 km.

This can result in a five-to eight-fold reduction in the number of electrical regenerator sites in a long-distance network. In addition, the CorWave Optical Router transparently provisions and reconfigures both OC-192/OC-192(c) and OC-48/OC-48 (c) service streams, up to a capacity of 2.4 terabits at a service provider switch site.

"The Corvis system is designed to dramatically reduce the time required to deliver new bandwidth services," said Glenn Falcao, executive vice president of Corvis.

"Carriers can now provision coast-to-coast routes in a matter of hours rather than months. That lowers operations costs and eliminates lengthy waiting periods for high capacity circuits ordered by customers--a real competitive advantage in this marketplace."

About Corvis

Corvis Corporation is a privately held fiber optic equipment company founded by Dr. David Huber, a founder of Ciena Corporation.

The company recently unveiled the first transparent all-optical switching, transport and network management solutions that will revolutionize the way traffic is moved in the new Internet-driven economy. The Corvis all-optical mesh network is the next step in the evolution of high-capacity "backbone" telecommunications equipment.

Corvis products and services give communication service providers the capability to build a single-layer, transparent all-optical high-capacity network necessary to quickly accommodate the continuing growth of Internet, video, voice, and other data traffic.

This flexibility can result in a significant gain in network capacity using existing fiber in the field.

About Broadwing Communications

Broadwing Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Broadwing, Inc. (NYSE: BRW). Broadwing is an integrated communications powerhouse delivering voice, data and Internet solutions to a variety of customers nationwide.

Focused on customer service combined with a premier next-generation fiber network and IP backbone, Broadwing's reliable high-bandwidth data and Internet capabilities give businesses a competitive advantage. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio with 5,500 employees in 38 cities, Broadwing can be found on the World Wide Web at broadwing.com.

For more information, call 443/259-4000.