Luminous Shines With 3 New Customers

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Luminous Networks(TM), a leading provider of packet-ring access platforms, supporting Ethernet service delivery and aggregation for data, voice and video services, announced today that its solutions have been selected by three North American service providers, bringing the Luminous Networks customer base to over 65 worldwide.

   The diversity of services and applications offered by the newest Luminous Networks customers further exemplifies the flexibility and effectiveness of Luminous' solutions. "We are very pleased to be selected by IDACOMM, Northern Cablevision and United Utilities," stated Chris Stark, President and CEO of Luminous Networks. "These customers are part of the accelerating market trend to deploy high quality, scalable and manageable access networks as a means to deliver many new network-based, content rich services to residences and businesses."

   IDACOMM, the communications subsidiary of IDACORP (NYSE:IDA), based in Boise, ID, provides connectivity solutions over a fiber optic network throughout eleven Western U.S. States. IDACOMM selected Luminous Networks because it will allow rapid provisioning of custom fiber connectivity for wholesale carrier transport, DSL Aggregation, VoIP transport, high-speed Internet, video-conferencing, LAN and WAN Ethernet applications. IDACOMM will be able to provide services to customers in a fraction of the time normally associated with telecom service provisioning by using the Luminous Management System (LMS).

   Northern Cablevision, based in Edmonton, Canada, provides high-Speed Internet, digital cable and cable television to communities throughout the Province of Alberta, Canada. In addition to providing packet-based services to businesses and residences, the Northern Cablevision network is also a major broadband connectivity solutions provider for schools, provincial government offices and libraries funded by the Alberta SuperNet project. Luminous Networks was selected because Northern Cablevision found a solution that had the reliability and manageability required for multiple, latency sensitive broadband service offerings while keeping network and operational costs in check. The success Luminous Networks has seen in the U.S. with the major Cable/MSO providers through its strategic partner Scientific Atlanta (NYSE:SFA) was also a deciding factor in Northern Cablevision's selection of Luminous Networks.

   United Utilities, a subsidiary of United Companies, Inc., provides traditional telephony, broadband data services, and cellular services to over 60 Alaskan communities with a network covering over 150,000 square miles. The Luminous solutions, with selectable optics, provide some of the longest span lengths and highest node per ring capacities in the industry, with the ability to span over 200km and support over 210 Nodes per Ring. In addition, PacketWave products support extended temperature ranges to meet the severe temperature ranges found in United Utilities' service areas. The solutions also provide packet-based transport with quality of service levels for priority voice and data service, without the need for extra ring capacity, thus removing costly idle network bandwidth. United Utilities will deploy Luminous Networks Solutions for efficient and scalable network transport and aggregation applications.

Luminous Networks Inc.