Marconi Shakes Up CeBIT

LONDON and HANNOVER -- Marconi (MONI) today announced that its programme to refocus on its core strengths in the telecommunications equipment and services marketplace is nearing completion. "While we continually review the scope and focus of our business against prevailing market conditions, we have essentially completed the task of structuring our core business for the future and have made significant progress in streamlining our business functions accordingly," said Mike Parton, the company’s chief executive.Speaking at CeBIT, the international technology and telecommunications exhibition in Hannover, Germany, Parton added: "Over the last 18 months, we have identified our core business, reduced non-core activities radically and aligned our renewed focus with our strengths."I’m delighted to report that, despite the last two years of turbulence in our industry, Marconi has successfully retained its key customers, consistently delivered market leading customer service, and we have continued to bring strategically important new products to market. We have also appointed a strong, new Board to oversee our continued evolution. I believe Marconi will emerge stronger after what has been a difficult period for all of us in the telecoms industry," said Parton.Parton believes that partnerships, where research and development and routes to market are shared for mutual benefit, will be an increasingly important factor in the industry and expects Marconi to be an active participant. "There is no single technology company today capable of addressing all areas of the operators’ network requirements. Marconi’s existing partnerships are very good examples and we will build on these," he said.Marconi’s future business focus falls into four primary areas:

In a separate release:Marconi (MONI) today detailed plans for the roll-out of its SMA16-64 family of next-generation Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) multiplexers. Reinforcing Marconi’s commitment to the high levels of performance already demonstrated in its present SDH equipment, the SMA 16-64 offers an efficient and flexible solution to handle the increasing growth in data traffic and services, without compromising the support of existing legacy services. Designed specifically for use in metropolitan access and core networks, the SMA16-64 is equally suited for use in regional and national backbone networks.The new SMA 16-64 family will be available later this year. It extends further the company’s range of next-generation SDH equipment, launched in the autumn of 2002, which already includes the SMA Series 4 add/drop multiplexers, the MSH2K optical core switch and the MSH64C compact 10Gbit/s multiplexer."As recently as two years ago, many industry commentators considered that Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) would displace traditional SDH solutions," said Mike Parton, chief executive of Marconi. "But today, there is a strong focus on next-generation SDH as the technology to deliver cost-effectively both Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) and data services on the same platform. SDH has the granularity, flexibility and proven performance to provide this diverse service-provisioning capability, with DWDM providing the complementary technology for high-capacity backbone networks and for the relief of network capacity bottle-necks."Our next-generation SDH products have the ability to meet the challenge of today’s networks, retaining the carrier-class capabilities of SDH whilst supporting more efficient transport of data."In a separate release:Marconi (MONI) today announced that it has released a new feature card for its Access Hub platform that will allow operators to connect customers to broadband Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services within hours from the time the service is requested. End user customers will be able to call their service provider and have the service connected in the time it takes to visit a local high street to buy an ADSL modem for a PC. This compares with the wait of between 10-18 days to connect xDSL customers using existing, deployed technology.Marconi's Access Hub is a multiservice access node that uses existing telephone lines to provide high bandwidth services. It is located in a local exchange or operator's central office. The new combo card slots directly into the Access Hub. It combines narrowband Plain Old Telephony Services (POTS) and broadband ADSL connectivity on the same line. This allows operators to switch customers between narrowband and broadband services remotely, with the simple click of a mouse button. This contrasts with existing technology, which requires an engineer to visit the local telephone exchange and manually switch wires from one socket to another."Access Hub's new combo card cuts the cost and improves the end-user experience of connecting to the broadband world," said Martin Harriman, chief marketing officer, Marconi plc. "Users will be able to switch from narrowband to broadband quickly. This could be a significant development as thousands of potential broadband subscribers would be eliminated from waiting lists and become paying customers and DSL deployment would be accelerated."In a separate release:Marconi (MONI) today announced that it has received further orders from Deutsche Telekom for its ServiceOn Access network management systems to help the operator manage continued growth in the rollout of its T-DSL* services. With over three million ADSL lines, Deutsche Telekom is one of the largest broadband network operators in the world. Deutsche Telekom’s complete digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) network is controlled and monitored exclusively by Marconi’s ServiceOn Access network management platform.Markus Mayr, Marconi’s sales director for network management in Germany, said: "Deutsche Telekom’s 13 T-DSL management locations are managed by a total of 83 Marconi ServiceOn Access Systems, an increase of 24 systems supported by the current order. As before, the order was delivered quickly and efficiently."Installation, commissioning and activation of the management software was carried out by Marconi Communications software systems staff remotely."It is remarkable that each workstation was fully operational within a day of the system’s physical installation," added Mr Mayr.Due to the expansion of their T-DSL network Deutsche Telekom has continually extended the number of DSLAMs in its network. Each expansion has required additional ServiceOn Access Systems, including SNMP managers and DSLAM device drivers.In a separate release:Marconi today announced the agreement of two new non-executive directors to join the Board of Marconi Corporation plc.Kathleen Flaherty, a US-based global telecommunications executive with over twenty years experience in the communications industry, has agreed to join as a non-executive director of Marconi Corporation plc. Ian Clubb, with over 25 years experience in a range of senior financial and management roles, has also agreed to join the Board of Marconi Corporation plc as a non-executive director. Both these appointments will take effect at the time of Marconi Corporation’s forthcoming listing on the London Stock Exchange following the implementation of the Group’s financial restructuring.Kathleen Flaherty spent seventeen years with MCI, latterly as senior vice president, global product architecture and engineering. Previously (1995–97) she spent two years on secondment from MCI to BT, during which time she was BT’s marketing director for National Business Communications. Between 1998 and 2001 Kathleen was in Brussels and New York as president and chief operating officer of Winstar International, a fixed wireless communications company.Ian Clubb is chairman of First Choice plc, Shanks Group plc and Platinum Investment Trust plc. He is also a non-executive director of oil industry services company, Expro International plc. He was group finance director at BOC Group plc (1991-1994) and deputy chief executive and group finance director at British Satellite Broadcasting Ltd (1989-1991).John Devaney, chairman of Marconi plc, said: "I am delighted to welcome Kathleen Flaherty and Ian Clubb to the Board. Kathleen’s international telecommunications experience and Ian’s broad base of experience in senior management, will be great assets to the Company as we emerge and rebuild from our financial restructuring."Marconi plc