ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- Agere Systems Inc. (NYSE: AGR.A), the world leader in communications components, was chosen by Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) to be a major technology partner for Lucent's new Stinger IP2000 control module for digital subscriber line (DSL) applications. The two companies, in a joint technology agreement, worked together to develop routing capabilities for the Stinger module. Agere's network processing technology is being used in Lucent's digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) product family, which enables the delivery of video as well as voice and data, over DSL. DSLAMs, located in telecommunications vendors' central offices, connect customers to the Internet. The IP2000 module is already shipping to customers and operating in multiple carrier networks. This is the first Stinger product with Agere components. The Lucent IP2000 control module also makes the Stinger product the first DSLAM to incorporate gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technology, which provides the higher bandwidth and faster speed needed to make video available via DSL. The module can be added to earlier versions of the Stinger DSLAM. "The Stinger team needed solutions that could meet very demanding flow classification, queuing and quality of service (QoS) requirements," said Mark Pinto, vice president of Agere's processing, aggregation and switching division. "At the same time, the team had to get those solutions into the hands of time-sensitive customers who already had Stinger platforms running in their networks," he said. "Agere's network processing technology was among the most fitting solutions in terms of providing multi-protocol processing power and enabling rapid application development. It also allows Lucent to provide its customers additional features and capabilities moving forward without any hardware changes. Agere is helping Lucent deliver the additional services and lower costs to customers using their existing networks." Lucent Technologies Inc. Agere Systems