Equipe Announces EvailNet Manager For The E3200; Accelerates ATM-based Carriers Transition To IP/MPLS; Designed For High Availability, Scalability And Revenue Agility.

Business/Technology Editors

SUPERCOMM 2001

Booth #9064

ACTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2001

Equipe Communications Corporation announced the EvailNet(TM) Manager Element Management System for its flagship product the Equipe 3200(TM) Multi-Layer Optical On-Ramp (E3200) today. EvailNet Manager is the first element management system purpose-built to handle the scaling, availability and integration requirements of today's large-scale facilities-based carriers. It eliminates barriers to service provisioning, distributes management to the network elements for proactive management and supports carrier networks with a unique architecture designed for growth.

EvailNet Manager and the E3200 are tightly integrated to create the only data communications core platform capable of transitioning large-scale service providers from Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) to Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) while leveraging the emerging optical technologies. Service providers have invested approximately $17 billion in ATM infrastructure worldwide since 1997.(1)

"Element management is critical to every deployed network, however to date the industry has treated it as an afterthought. The increased variety, complexity and operational costs of today's network architectures requires that carriers rethink their approach to managing individual network elements," said Nancee Ruzicka, program manager, Carrier Convergence Infrastructure, The Yankee Group. "Element management is becoming an important criteria for vendor selection and carriers are increasingly demanding the kind of sophistication and flexibility found in the Equipe EvailNet Manager."

EvailNet Manager: Carrier-Class Element Management Requirements

EvailNet Manager, with over 30 patent applications filed, sets new carrier-class element management standards for the public data network by providing carriers three new important benefits:

-- A Revenue-Agile Core that eliminates barriers to service provisioning. EvailNet Manager integrates with existing carrier Operational Support Systems (OSS) for zero-touch operations.

-- 99.999% availability through a patented combination of transaction-oriented operations and distributed management intelligence.

-- A three-tier architecture allows EvailNet Manager to scale with a large data network. EvailNet Manager supports millions of virtual circuits and over 500 operators.

"One of the keys to any good element manager is how easily it integrates with a carrier's existing OSS," said Mike Johnson, CTO, Lightyear. "The last thing a network operator needs to deal with is another screen to monitor. Equipe's EvailNet Manager is transparent to network operators and is easy to integrate into an existing OSS."

Equipe 3200 Multi-Layer Optical On-Ramp

The Equipe 3200 Multi-Layer Optical On-Ramp (E3200) allows ILECs, IXCs and International Carriers to generate more revenue from their existing ATM, Private Line and Frame Relay networks while transitioning to IP/MPLS-based services. Services are groomed and multiplexed by Equipe's integrated cross connect and intelligently transported across optical networks utilizing standards-based optical signaling. The E3200 sets a new standard for high availability and represents the first use of micro kernel software architecture to public data networking.

The Equipe Revenue Agile Core And Revenue Agility

Revenue Agility is the ability of a carrier to shift its network and the associated business processes quickly from one service to another to maximize revenue and minimize overall costs. The multi-layer functionality of the E3200 with EvailNet Manager provides carriers the flexibility to shift from one core technology to the next - allowing them to scale existing revenue streams while laying the foundation for future packet-based services that will be transported directly over fiber.

Pricing and Availability

List price for the EvailNet Manager System starts at $20,000 for a base configuration. Alpha Testing was completed in March 2001. Beta Testing is scheduled for June 2001. The company expects to ship the EvailNet Manager and the E3200 for revenue by the end of the year.

About Equipe Communications Corporation

Equipe Communications Corporation delivers high availability solutions that scale incumbent service provider networks and services while providing the agility to transition to packet based architectures. Built on Equipe's highly reliable Evail(TM) software architecture, the Equipe 3200 is the only core platform capable of transitioning ATM based networks to IP/MPLS while leveraging emerging optical technologies. For more information, visit www.equipecom.com.

(1) Data compiled from Vertical Systems Group Research