OpVista Wins Cox DWDM Deal

IRVINE, Calif. -- OpVista, Inc., the company delivering tomorrow's converged WDM networks today, announced today that Cox Communications Inc., a leading multi-service broadband communications company, awarded OpVista a multi-year contract to deliver the MetroVista(TM) DWDM optical transport system to facilitate Cox's migration to a fully converged, next-generation DWDM network. Faced with the challenge of expanding the capacity and distance capabilities of its existing fiber plant, Cox chose OpVista's MetroVista for its ability to efficiently address these fundamental issues while delivering a low first-in capital cost and reducing operating costs and support requirements.

"Our network is growing rapidly as we continue to exceed expectations for Cox High Speed Internet customers, expand video on demand capability, and grow our Cox Business Services division. We needed an innovative technology that would meet the capacity demands of this growth, while allowing us greater visibility into the performance of the network and flexibility to rearrange the network remotely," said Dan Estes, engineering manager, Cox Communications. "We selected OpVista's unique solution after an exhaustive evaluation process. The MetroVista optical transport system met our stringent evaluation criteria and will allow us to economically expand our network as we launch new leading edge services to our customers."

OpVista's MetroVista optical system consolidates multiple formats and delivers up to 800 Gigabits per second on a single fiber. Because it is designed to International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards, it works with legacy optical systems and provides an instant "patch-cord" upgrade to 10G capacity. Distances up to 1,000 km require no dispersion compensation or signal regeneration.

MetroVista provides a reconfigurable and cost-effective architecture for wavelength management because all wavelengths are broadcast throughout the network and are available at all nodes. Reconfigurability is provided by R-OADMS, tunable receivers that remotely and instantaneously tune to the desired wavelength. As little as a single wavelength can be dropped and optical power balancing is automatic, without disrupting existing traffic.

"This agreement is a clear and continuing validation of OpVista's technology," said Ron Foster, president and CEO of OpVista. "Our MetroVista solution will provide Cox a cost-effective, scalable DWDM solution that will efficiently manage rapid network growth and increase service revenues while controlling infrastructure costs. We are extremely pleased to be working with this technology and services leader."

OpVista Inc.

Cox Communications Inc.