FiveCom picks AT&T Fiber; FiveCom contract awarded to AT&T; NEON Telecom System advances; Large commercial order for AT&T's TrueWave(tm) Single Mode Fiber.

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 1995--FiveCom Inc. developers of NEON (New England Optical Network) have announced selection of AT&T Network Cable Systems TrueWave(tm) fiber as NEON's optical fiber supplier.

AT&T will supply both standard single mode and TrueWave(tm) fiber for the project. TrueWave fiber is a patented, non-zero dispersion fiber invented by AT&T Bell Labs.

FiveCom selected AT&T's fiber for fabrication in FOCAS OPGW (optical ground wire) cable. FOCAS is the OPGW cable supplier for FiveCom's NEON (New England Optical Network) system.

FiveCom's first order calls for approximately 24,000 miles (38,000 Km) of fiber (strand) of which 16,000 miles (25,600 Km) is conventional AT&T SM fiber and 6,400 miles (10,240 Km) is TrueWave fiber. FiveCom predicts this to be the tip of an iceberg. Over the next few years the company estimates it will turn-up over 30,000 miles (48,000Km) of TrueWave fiber out of a total 120,000 miles (or 192,000 Km) of fiber strand.

FiveCom's Vice President Arthur Rivers said, "For FiveCom's purposes TrueWave fiber is an excellent all purpose choice. It should satisfy even our most discerning customer." Continued Rivers, "TrueWave fiber handles chromatic dispersion which gives us longer distances at higher bit rates, and four-wave mixing is also handled so that WDM can be used over our longest network sections without problems."

According to FiveCom's Vice President Michael Musen, "We feel that this is the best all purpose fiber on the market today. Our company is confidently on the cutting edge and front line with AT&T's new product."

When asked about possibly being a guinea pig for product testing, Musen rhetorically responded, "We understand that this might be the first large commercial application for TrueWave fiber outside of AT&T's own network, but everything about our company is cutting edge, so what's new?" "Every carrier buying our capacity will test the performance, we test, our vendors test, contractors and splicers test, probably our bankers will want to test as well. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that AT&T's TrueWave product will deliver."

According to Musen, FiveCom's vendor selection team was impressed that "TrueWave fiber is capable of transmitting up to 80 Gbits/s of digital signal, that is about 16 times more capacity than today's convention."

Musen continued, "TrueWave is designed for systems operating in the 1550 nm window. The technical specs give a non-zero dispersion feature in WDM applications and the fiber has excellent PMD performance. We are motivated by the fiber's performance of closely spaced wavelengths between 1530 and 1560 nm. This is important because of troublesome phenomenon called four-wave mixing (or four-photon mixing). Two or more wavelengths interfere with signal wavelengths over long distances. The non-zero dispersion characteristic of TrueWave discourages phase matching between wavelengths and betters network performance at the longer distances. TrueWave fiber also minimizes polarization-mode dispersion which gives better performance as well."

"Among the other factors that led to the selection of TrueWave fiber were the geometrical characteristics that permit low loss splicing which is critical for networks that have tight loss budgets. The dual coating applied over the cladding and AT&T's individual strand testing were also important. Specific tests are routinely conducted by AT&T to insure survival of the fiber under installation loads and long term residual stresses." said Musen.

"Price was not a factor," according to Musen. "Until a better product comes along, we plan to call for TrueWave fiber in our ADSS (all dielectric self support) and underground cable fabrications as well," Rivers concluded.

CONTACT: FiveCom Inc.

Cheryl Mills, 800/891-5080