NEW ORLEANS -- Optical Solutions Inc., the fiber to the premises market leader, today announced that its FiberPath 500 fiber to the premises (FTTP) system has been accepted by the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS). A technical standards committee at RUS determines acceptance of products for the List of Materials. The company's FiberPath 400 FTTP system is also listed on the RUS List of Materials.

"Service providers across the country securing RUS funding for their broadband network deployments utilize the RUS List of Materials as 'the' industry resource for broadband products and systems that have proven reliability in the marketplace," said Peter Jew, vice president of marketing at Optical Solutions.

"GPON systems like the FiberPath 500 fully meet the service providers' needs for high-speed economical fiber access to support Ethernet and other emerging services for FTTP," said Danny Briere, CEO of TeleChoice, a broadband industry analyst firm. "The GPON standard is the most advanced and most cost-efficient PON protocol on the market today. Given the recent regulatory relief for FTTH and other fiber incentives, GPON is the standard most likely to be deployed in the carriers' networks going forward."

FiberPath 500 meets the broadband needs of entire communities and is a complete equipment, networking and service solution. At its core is the FiberDrive* Optical Line Terminal (OLT), with a field proven integrated GR-303/TR-08 voice gateway for interface directly to all the commonly deployed Class 5 switches. The FiberDrive has the highest network capacity in the industry, offering more than 9 Gigabits of bandwidth. The FiberDrive is located in the Central Office (CO), where voice, video and data signals are converted into optical light signals. These are transported through the passive optical network (PON) to the FiberPoint * Optical Network Terminal (ONT) unit installed at the subscriber's residence or business. The FiberPoint 524 residential ONT offers 4 POTs lines, 10/100 BaseT and 1 CATV port. FiberPath 500's powerful 560 business unit allows great flexibility in serving business subscribers, with up to 20 POTS lines, 4 10/100 BaseT Ethernet, 8 T1s and 4 CATV ports.

Using a standard FSAN single-fiber network design, the FiberPath 500 fully supports RF video deployments including those with RF return set top boxes. RF performance exceeds 48 dB carrier-to-noise ratio at 20 kilometers/12 miles on a fully loaded PON.

Optical Solutions is showcasing its FiberPath 500 system this week in booth #140 at the FTTH Conference in New Orleans, October 7-9, 2003. The FTTH Council's three-day conference at the Hilton Riverside hotel includes a series of speakers and discussions in three tracks: technology, business/case studies, and FTTH 101.

Optical Solutions Inc.