Telcordia Leads GPON Testing To Ensure Multivendor Interoperability; Moves GPON Closer to Commercial Deployment.

PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- As an industry leader in Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) interoperability requirements and testing, Telcordia. (www.telcordia.com) today announces that it will host the second GPON test event in May. This is the latest example of Telcordia's two decades of leadership and experience providing testing services for state-of-the-art technologies, which have included FTTx optical systems and components, SONET/SDH network elements, and optical networking technologies.

The two-day event will be held in conjunction with the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) second quarter 2006 meeting and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Study Group 15 interim meeting (SG 15/Q2) during the week of May 22, 2006. Nearly a dozen system and device vendors will interconnect their GPON products and reference design prototypes at Telcordia to test interoperability and assess the implementation of the ITU-T G.984.x specifications. The tests and meetings will be held at Telcordia's headquarters in Piscataway, NJ, where Telcordia also hosted the first GPON test event in January 2006. Participating companies include Adtran, AMCC, Broadlight, Calix, Conexant, Fujitsu, NEC, Optical Zonu, Siemens and Tellabs.

"When the industry needs to test cutting-edge technologies, it turns to Telcordia," said Rob Bond, Senior Systems Engineer, Access Technologies Analysis and Consulting, Telcordia. "Telcordia is providing vendors and operators critical insights into GPON. By serving as host, and by helping develop the FSAN interoperability test plan, Telcordia is demonstrating its commitment to enabling the expansion of the broadband access market."

Many existing Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) deployments use Broadband PON (BPON, G.983.x), which supports download speeds of 622 Mbps, or Ethernet PON (EPON, IEEE 802.3ah), which supports effective download speeds of approximately 850 Mbps. By comparison, GPON has downstream rates of 2488 Mbps with Ethernet-friendly GPON Encapsulation Mode (GEM) transport, making it better able to support emerging, bandwidth-intensive services such as Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).

"These test events provide GPON system and device vendors with a convenient, cost-effective way to verify their interpretation of industry specifications and validate their implementations," said Tim Manahan, Vice President, Telcordia Consulting Services. "By conducting the tests early in their development processes, vendors can avoid costly changes later in their GPON product's commercial life. Service providers also benefit from these tests, which help ensure that the GPON specifications enable multi-vendor interoperability in future commercial deployments."

More information on Telcordia Testing Services can be found at www.telcordia.com.

About Telcordia

Telcordia Technologies, Inc. is a leading global provider of telecommunications network software and services for IP, wireline, wireless, and cable. As the industry continuously evolves, Telcordia is focused on being the undisputed transformation partner for its customers. By delivering flexible, standards-based software solutions and consulting services that optimize complex network and business support systems, Telcordia helps customers transform their business while aggressively reducing costs and growing revenues. Telcordia is headquartered in Piscataway, N.J, with offices throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Central and Latin America. (www.telcordia.com)