Atoga Uses Agility's 3040 High-power, Widely Tunable Laser for New, Award-winning Optical Application Router Family

Source: Agility Communications, Inc.

Tunable Lasers Enable Carriers To Efficiently Remove Bandwidth Constraints in the Metro Network

Santa Barbara, CA. Agility Communications™, Inc., a pioneer of next-generation optical networking components, announced today that Atoga Systems, Inc. is employing the Agility 3040 High-Power, Widely Tunable Laser in its Optical Application Router (OAR) family of products. Atoga, the industry s first provider of intelligent wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) solutions that use tunable lasers, recently introduced the OAR 30 at SUPERCOMM 2001, winning the SUPERQuest Award for Most Promising New Technology in the category of public-network, optical-networking equipment.

The OAR product family is a highly scalable, optical switching platform with enhanced wavelength-grooming capabilities for today s metro network. Through integration of IP, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and WDM layers, the Atoga solution frees carriers to introduce new, higher-margin IP services without jeopardizing revenues derived from legacy Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) offerings. By combining Atoga s FastApp™ architecture with Agility s 3040 high-power, widely tunable laser, the OAR solutions create dynamically configurable networks in the metro, delivering scalable services through intelligent grooming of network traffic.

Agility s 3040 High-Power, Widely Tunable Laser provides up to 4 mW of optical output power, to any C-band wavelength in less than 10 milliseconds. The laser, the first of its kind available in manufacturing samples, provides communications companies with far greater bandwidth flexibility than what is currently available with fixed-wavelength or narrowly tunable lasers. Agility recently announced the first demonstrated prototype of a 10-mW widely tunable laser that can tune across the entire C-band. Agility s Indium Phosphide laser chip is manufactured in a world-class wafer fab located at Agility s corporate headquarters in Santa Barbara, Calif., where the laser was designed and developed. The wafer fab has Class 1000 clean rooms and capacity to ramp to one million lasers per year.

"Our integrated, intelligent OAR platform takes full advantage of Agility s tunable DWDM lasers to rapidly switch from one wavelength of light to another, offering carriers enormous benefits in networking efficiency through significant performance advantages, improved network flexibility, and seamless scalability," said Mark Lowry, director of photonics at Atoga. "The use of tunable lasers in the OAR product family provides our customers with faster provisioning times, more flexible networks, and reduced operating costs. Our relationship with Agility as one of our tunable laser vendors has been a significant decision in getting our product to market without delay."

"We congratulate Atoga on winning SUPERCOMM s SUPERQuest Award for Most Promising New Technology in the category of public-network, optical-networking equipment," said Arlon Martin, vice president of marketing, Agility. "Atoga s OAR products employing Agility s lasers will deliver the combination of service and transport capabilities that carriers need to simultaneously protect existing revenue streams and exploit new opportunities. We re pleased to be working with Atoga to enable metropolitan carriers to scale up their networks and meet the continued bandwidth needs of Internet users."

About Atoga Systems, Inc. Atoga Systems designs, develops and manufactures intelligent, integrated WDM platforms for the optical Internet. Atoga s solutions for the metro network allow service providers to increase service velocity through intelligent and simplified provisioning of applications and services. Atoga s integrated optical platforms enable service providers to broaden service offerings, increase the aggregate performance of their network infrastructure and radically reduce the total cost of operation. Atoga was founded in December 1999 and is located in Fremont, California. Visit http://www.atoga.com.

About Agility Communications, Inc. Agility Communications, Inc., is pioneering breakthrough optical networking infrastructure solutions that dramatically reduce the costs and complexity of supporting agile networks. The company has been named one of Light Reading s Top 10 Privately Held Companies, has won the Technologic Partners Optix 2001 Investor s Choice award, and was listed in UPSIDE Magazine s "Hot 100" private companies for 2001.

Founded by a team of optical networking and semiconductor veterans in Oct. 1998, Agility is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California and has manufacturing facilities in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Agility investors include Amerindo Investment Advisors, Comdisco Ventures, Dell Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Mustang Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Worldview Technology Partners. For more information about Agility solutions visit www.agility.com, send email to info@agility.com or call 805-690-1700.

Agility Communications and the Agility logo are trademarks of Agility Communications, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company and product names mentioned are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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