CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Luminous Networks Inc., the firstprovider of carrier-class Gigabit Ethernet over Fiber metro access systems,today announced an alliance with Portal Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRSF), a leadingprovider of business infrastructure software for broadband, wireless Internet,and next-generation communications services. Under terms of the allianceagreement, Portal's Infranet® customer management and billing platform will beintegrated with Luminous Networks' PacketWave? optical access switches. Thiscombined solution will provide an optical networking platform that incorporatesreal-time billing and multi-tier pricing support for major carriers in themetropolitan optical network market.

"By forging strategic alliances with such industry leaders as Portal Software,we continue to offer end-to-end, best-of-breed solutions to our customersworldwide," said Jay Shuler, vice president of marketing and businessdevelopment at Luminous Networks. "The integration of our systems with Portal'sInfranet will provide our customers with an enhanced solution that includesreal-time, scalable billing capabilities."

http://www.luminousnetworks.com