ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR.A), the world leader in communications components, today announced volume production of its enhanced system-on-chip (SoC) SONET/SDH framer solution that combines Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) standard products together with its market-leading add-drop multiplexer (TADM), virtual concatenation (VC), FPGA technology and standalone SDRAM. The new Gigabit Ethernet over SONET/SDH (GEoS) framer solution is designed to boost performance, lower system development costs, simplify designs and speed time-to-market for multi-protocol, multi-rate metropolitan area network (MAN) equipment. It is targeted to next-generation GEoS, 3G wireless base station and aggregation edge router applications. The product will be demonstrated at the Optical Fiber Conference this week in Anaheim, Calif. at Agere's booth #4001. Agere Systems' new GEoS solution can efficiently transport GbE frames over existing SONET/SDH rings networks by taking advantage of Agere's virtual concatenation feature which maps and un-maps arbitrary groups of STS-1/VC-4 signals, enabling network OEMs to connect to SONET networks more quickly and easily, reducing overall system power and cost for Ethernet over SONET (EoS) and packet-over-SONET (PoS) applications. "From the beginning, Agere's vision has been to simplify and integrate GEoS while packing in more speed, functionality and performance," said Mark Granahan, vice president of Agere's optical access and transport business unit. "With expertise in integrating both optoelectronics and silicon, we're able to help customers reduce the time and expense of developing new communications equipment while boosting speed, bandwidth efficiency and time-to-market through leading products that put native intelligence at the network's edge." Agere Systems For more information on OFC 2002, please visit: www.nottheofc.com