Press Release

June 14, 2004 - Wave7 Optics Expands Line of Customer Premises Equipment to Create “Advanced FTTC” Category for Optical Broadband Services to Apartment Buildings and Other “High Density” Areas

New Service Option Beats Comparable DSL or Cable Services by Greatly Expanding the Pool of Available Bandwidth and Lowering the Per Connection Cost

ALPHARETTA, GA, June 14, 2004 -- Wave7 Optics, Inc. today announced that its industry-leading line of next generation optical broadband access equipment, the Last Mile Link (LML), now allows service providers to deploy “advanced FTTC” (Fiber-to-the-Curb) services, which will feature more available bandwidth and lower subscriber installation costs than traditional FTTC, often used for apartment and similar high-density applications.

Wave7 Optics’ new higher-density versions of its customer premises equipment, known as the Last Mile Gateway (LMG), make it possible to share fiber data rates across multiple subscribers, compared to individually connecting each subscriber with traditional DSL or cable, which allows service providers to offer premium service in higher-density areas at significantly less cost than the prevailing rate of cable or DSL broadband connectivity.

“Advanced FTTC can be mixed with FTTP in the same network, resulting in lower average cost per subscriber than existing broadband networks, but with tremendous revenue upside,” said Emmanuel Vella, Wave7 Optics Chief Marketing Officer. “FTTC no longer means sharing traditional broadband data rates amongst multiple subscribers, but rather sharing 500 Mbps amongst four or even eight subscribers.”

In addition to flexible port counts, all LMGs run the same software, operate simultaneously in the same network, and are seamlessly backwards compatible with existing Wave7 LMGs in the field. Higher-end LMGs provide unmatched bandwidth management and Quality of Service (QoS) at the port level in increments of 64 kbits. More importantly, QoS can also be managed at the service level – where Internet, Voice-over-IP, and IP video data can be independently controlled. In this manner, a service provider can, for example, simultaneously sell their customer 64kbps connectivity to the Internet while delivering a 4 Mbps IP video stream, knowing that the customer will be limited to 64kbps of bandwidth for the Internet traffic.

The newest Last Mile Gateway, the LMG-888, has eight Fast Ethernet ports, eight POTS ports, and eight RF video connections in a single compact environmentally hardened platform. A service provider may choose to first deploy the LMG-888 in a data-only configuration and add voice and/or telephony capability later when the business case justifies it. The unit will serve at least eight customers, depending on application and service penetration rates, with the full suite of triple-play services.

“The new 441 unit offers an industry-leading port count for single family home applications and our 484 and 888 units extend that capability to the MDU, which effectively adds advanced FTTC capability to the Last Mile Link portfolio,” said William Bryan, Wave7’s Product Management Director for Customer Premises Devices. “The 1000 and 4000 series units complete the picture for low and high-end business applications. Given that fiber-based broadband solutions offer more capacity and security than other broadband options, we believe that the Last Mile Link will become an even more compelling choice.”

Wave7 Optics is demonstrating the LMG and its complete LML product line at two major telecommunications events taking place in the next two weeks: the SCTE (Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) Cable-Tec Expo in Orlando, June 15 – 18 (booth 1935) and the TIA/USTA (Telecommunications Industry Association / United States Telecom Association) Supercomm 2004 in Chicago, June 20 – 24 (booth 28335).

About Wave7 Optics
Wave7 Optics, Inc. is a market leader in FTTP systems for “triple play” services, with customers around the world in the IOC, CLEC, MSO, municipal, real estate development and utility sectors. The company's “Last Mile Link” optical access system effectively overcomes the deployment and operational cost barriers that have to date stymied the deployment of optical broadband systems. Wave7’s Last Mile Core transport and Last Mile Gateway subscriber premises products provide advanced “carrier class” QoS and Layer 3 intelligence at the network edge. The Last Mile Link offers service providers a particular advantage with regards to video in that it is the only platform that supports upstream RF return signals and readily accommodates HDTV.

For more information please contact william.bryan@w7optics.com.

<Back>