Sanef Telecoms Deploys Atrica's Carrier Ethernet Systems to Fulfill Burgeoning Demands for Enterprise Connectivity and Wholesale Services.

PARIS & SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- New Infrastructure Will Deliver Customized, Very High Speed Services to Local Authorities, Public Institutions and Businesses; Strengthens Leading Motorway Company's Competitive Position Against European ILECs

Sanef Telecoms, a business unit of motorway leader Sanef Group and an innovative regional telecommunications operator, has deployed Atrica's Carrier Ethernet Systems. Sanef Telecoms will leverage the solutions to deliver customized, high-speed and very high-speed communications services to local authorities, public institutions and businesses situated near its motorways in France, and to expand its wholesale services business. The new state-of-the-art communications infrastructure will allow the company to cost-effectively, rapidly and reliably fulfill the burgeoning demand for connectivity among businesses and other institutions that span multiple metros throughout France, and to provide an alternative to existing wholesale service providers. The network's scalability, reliability and low cost structure will strengthen Sanef Telecom's competitive position against incumbent European service providers.

With a 3855 km fiber optic network that connects the greater Paris region with the major cities of northern and eastern France, Sanef Telecoms delivers services such as high-speed Internet, Ethernet VPNs, video surveillance, video conferencing and IP telephone to business parks and industrial estates.

As Sanef Telecoms sought to pursue the growing enterprise connectivity market in Europe, which is being driven in part by the requirement that Storage Area Network must be 300Km from the initial site, and to expand its wholesale business, it discovered that its existing Ethernet/SDH/DWDM network, which had been serving the company's internal connectivity needs and some wholesale services, were inadequate to meet these markets' stringent scalability, reliability, cost, and time-to-service demands. After a thorough evaluation, Sanef Telecoms concluded that the Atrica Carrier Ethernet infrastructure presents a more efficient data packetization than DWDM, without the restrictions of packet channel DWDM, along with a more streamlined and efficient provisioning and network management process.

Sanef Telecom selected the Atrica solutions for their delivery of critical functionality areas such as support of TDM traffic via Circuit Emulation, guaranteed end-to-end Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with CIR and EIR, sub-50ms resiliency, scalability of the network architecture, and carrier-class service management and provisioning. The infrastructure's compliance with the Metro Ethernet Forum's Global Carrier Ethernet Service Definitions was another key consideration. The new Carrier Ethernet infrastructure is allowing Sanef Telecoms to meet market requests for resilient, reliable, high capacity data services, while providing its customers with the flexibility, cost savings and budgetary stability they need to link multiple locations, run bandwidth-intensive applications and converge multiple types of content over a single network infrastructure.

Sanef Telecoms has deployed Atrica's comprehensive Carrier Ethernet product suite, including the A-8100 Carrier Ethernet Core Switch, the A-4100 Carrier Ethernet Aggregation Switch and the A-2100 Carrier Ethernet Edge Switch, as well as the Atrica Service Platform for Ethernet Networks (ASPEN(TM)), an integrated service provisioning and management system.

"Sanef has a reputation for leveraging the latest technological innovations to unfailingly serve our customers' needs," said Helideo Costa-Elias, Director for Sanef Telecoms. "This Carrier Ethernet deployment upholds that reputation, as it allows our customers to take advantage of an evolving, accessible network to meet their daily communications challenges."

"In EMEA, the challenging competitive environment includes alternative service providers such as utilities and other entities such as motorway operator Sanef that can leverage rights of way and build out their own fiber infrastructure," said Dave Dunphy, Research Director of Network Infrastructure at Ovum-RHK. "Those wishing to cash in on the growth in data services to the Enterprise want the ability to offer high capacity services that are resilient and offer 50ms restoration. They will definitely consider Carrier Ethernet solutions that can offer these attributes and the potential cost savings of L2 switched solutions."

"We are thrilled to add an innovator like Sanef Telecoms to our portfolio of world-class Carrier Ethernet customers," said Vivek Ragavan, president and CEO of Atrica. "Sanef Telecoms' decision to deploy our solutions reflects the increasing momentum that Carrier Ethernet -- and Atrica -- is seeing among European utility and motorway companies as they look to build state-of-the-art, cost-effective, scalable communications infrastructures."

About Sanef Telecoms

Sanef Telecom operates a 3855 km fibre network and 191 telecom transmission towers, located in northern France, running from Caen, Paris and Strasbourg up to Lille. For 40 years, Sanef Telecom has managed the telecom services needed to operate the motorway network of Sanef. Sanef Telecom addresses the B to B market and offers Ethernet bandwidth (10 Mbits, 100 Mbits, and 1.000 Mbits), broadband connectivity to internet, and all the facilities of housing. Sanef is part of the abertis group, the leader in European transport infrastructure. Sanef employs 3.600 staff, and 2005 revenues were 1.15 billon euros.

About Atrica

A technology visionary and industry pioneer, Atrica provides a full range of Carrier Ethernet transport solutions to service providers delivering Metro Ethernet services. Atrica's Carrier Ethernet product suite combines the benefits of Ethernet technology -- including its low-cost, proven scalability, ease of management, and ubiquity in the enterprise market -- with innovations in traffic engineering, service management and scalability to meet the stringent demands of next-generation transport networks. With Atrica's Carrier Ethernet solutions, service providers can deliver the ultimate broadband triple play services experience to their business and residential customers over a single universal transport network, with guaranteed SLAs, sub-50ms network-wide resiliency, TDM traffic support, and point-and-click, centralized OAM&P. Privately held, Atrica has received funding from world-class venture capital firms, industry leaders, and eight global service providers. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Atrica has R&D facilities in Israel and the Untied States and business development and sales offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit Atrica on the Web at www.atrica.com.

Atrica, ASPEN and The Carrier Ethernet Company are registered trademarks and trademarks of Atrica Inc. or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.