OPTICON KEYNOTE: DAN SMITH ON THE OPTICAL OPPORTUNITY
Optical networking has passed a critical "tipping point" and gained the critical mass needed to drive all sorts of innovation, according to Dan Smith, President and CEO of Sycamore Networks.  Two of the most remarkable characteristics of this new momentum are the torrent of venture capital and the high stock valuations awarded to optical players, attributes that Smith believes are not out of line if you consider the tremendous potential of the market.  In the case of Sycamore Networks, Smith views the record IPO as really the beginning point of the company, a marketing event as much as a financial milestone.  Unlike his previous experience with Cascade Communications, most of the equity in the company is held by employees.  Smith's leadership goals at Sycamore have been to build the team first, to organize the company for very fast growth, to create all the professional support services needed by carrier customers from the outset, to outsource all manufacturing operations, and to keep tight control over the strategic component supply chain for cutting edge products.  Sycamore is creating a switching product portfolio to link all of the "optical islands" created in metro access, metro core and long-haul networks.  Its vision is to enable "Liquid Light" – bandwidth on-demand, provisioned instantly across highly intelligent, all-optical networks.
August 2, 2000

CORNING ACQUIRES WILLOW SYSTEMS FOR MEMS OPTICAL SWITCH EXPERTISE
Corning acquired specific assets and the staff of Willow Systems, a developer of servo electronics for precision optical instruments, for an undisclosed sum.  Willow Systems specializes in the design and fabrication of control systems for adaptive optics imaging systems currently used in servo systems for gimbals and other optical instruments.  The systems require the parallel control of hundreds of moving mirrors or lens elements, a technology that Corning intends to apply towards its development of optical switching modules.  Willow Systems is based in Albuquerque, NM.  http://www.corning.com/news/news_update1/index.html
Corning, August 2, 2000

In February 1999 Corning acquired Rochester Photonics Corporation, a developer of diffractive optics, microlenses and array collimators located in Rochester, NY.  In May of this year, Corning acquired IntelliSense, a developer of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMs) software, design and fabrication based in Wilmington, MA.

360NETWORKS ANNOUNCES $100 MILLION BANDWIDTH DEAL WITH FRANCE TELECOM, INTELLIQ
360networks will provide France Telecom and Intelig 10 Gbps wavelength capacity on its planned submarine cable connecting the US with Bermuda, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina.  The first leg of the northern network ring linking the US, Bermuda and Brazil will be ready for service in September. The remainder of the ring linking Brazil to Venezuela and the US is slated for completion the first quarter of 2001. Additional terrestrial and undersea routes inside of Brazil are also planned.  The deal was valued at more than US $100 million.  http://www.360.net
360networks, August 2, 2000

Intelig is a competitive telecommunications company in Brazil that is jointly funded by National Grid UK (50%), Sprint (25%) and France Telecom (25%).  The venture plans to spend $1.5 billion over the next two years to rollout a state-of-the-art network in Brazil.

EINSTEINET ACQUIRES FIBER CAPACITY ON VIATEL'S PAN-EUROPEAN NETWORK
EINSTEINet AG, a start-up Application Service Provider planning to offer broadband software services, has acquired capacity and co-location space on Viatel's German fiber backbone.  Physical hosting facilities cover all of Viatel's currently available or planned 14 co-location centers across Germany.  Financial terms were not disclosed.  http://www.viatel.com
Viatel, August 2, 2000

EINSTEINet is working with Nortel DASA, the DaimlerChrysler-Nortel joint venture, on network. Construction.  Data center partners include Compaq, Sun, CITRIX and EMC. EINSTEINet has also entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft.  http://www.einsteinet.de/

EINSTEINet is led by Argentine-born Martin Varsavsky, who also was a founder of Viatel.

TERABRIDGE ADDS MGCP PROTOCOL SUPPORT TO ITS ATM AND IP SOFTSWITCH
TeraBridge Technologies announced Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) support for its converged ATM and IP softswitch.  TeraBridge's PathMinder client/server-based softswitch is designed to automate the provisioning of services and signaling connections using SS7, UNI 4.0, ISDN and Q.2931.  The new MGCP 0.1 and 1.0 support extends the platform's service interworking to IP-based networks.  Interoperability testing has been completed with several MGCP 0.1 and 1.0 compliant, media gateways, including Cisco's AS 5300 Universal Access Server.  http://www.terabridge.com/
TeraBridge, August 2, 2000

SONUS BENCHMARKS ITS SOFTSWITCH AT 1,600 CALLS PER SECOND
Sonus Networks released new performance benchmarks for its PSX6000 SoftSwitch, claiming 1,650 calls per second, equivalent to 5.94 million BHCA (busy hour call attempts).  The model used for the tests used a 12-CPU configuration.  An 8-CPU configuration performed at 1,400 calls per second.  The company also benchmarked the failover time from a primary to a secondary PSX6000 SoftSwitch at less than one second, without dropping a single call.  http://www.sonusnet.com
Sonus, August 2, 2000

MARCONI TO RESELL CROSSKEYS' SLA SOFTWARE
Marconi agreed to resell CrossKeys' Resolve software on an OEM basis to service provider customers as part of its ServiceOn Management suite.  The CrossKeys software enables service providers to measure and guarantee the quality of services to their customers.  Marconi's ServiceOn Management suite is designed to support all types of multivendor broadband, transport and access networks - including IP, ATM, SONET/SDH and DWDM.   http://www.crosskeys.com  http://www.marconi.com
Marconi, August 2, 2000  

SERCONET RAISES $5 MILLION FOR HOME NETWORKS
SerCoNet, a start-up based in Israel, received $5 million in venture funding for its efforts to develop solutions for the smart home networking market.  SerCoNet will use exiting telephone wiring within the home, but replace the standard telco jacks with "smart sockets," each accommodating computer and LAN hookups.  The company plans to deliver up to 400 Mbps to consumer devices throughout the home.  The company was founded by Yehuda Binder, among the founders of Orckit Communications.  http://www.serconet.co.il
SerCoNet, August 2, 2000