MRV, Marconi Team on EoSDH

CHATSWORTH, Calif. -- MRV Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRVC - News), a leading provider of unlimited connectivity solutions for scalable networks, today announced that it has signed a reseller agreement with Marconi Corporation (London: MONI). Under the terms of the agreement, Marconi will incorporate MRV's technology into its PacketSpan solution, lowering the cost of operators' customer premises equipment (CPE) and improving the manageability and operating expenses of Ethernet-over-SDH services.

Ethernet Port Extension (EPE) reduces the size, complexity and expense of PacketSpan CPE, extending the applicability of the data-over-Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) service to smaller and more geographically remote enterprises. It allows operators to offer these customers differentiated Ethernet-over-SDH services, such as Ethernet Private Lines -- extensions of their Local Area Networks (LANs) over Wide Area Networks (WANs) -- at a variety of different service levels. This has the potential to open up new revenue-generating opportunities for operators within the burgeoning small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector as well as the traditional corporate sites and publicly owned organizations.

"Marconi is the European market leader in SDH with huge installed base, according to the latest report by industry analysts RHK," said Martin Harriman, Chief Marketing Officer, Marconi Corporation plc. "PacketSpan provides our customers with the ability to upgrade their installed bases with Ethernet capabilities, allowing them to offer new, value-added managed SDH services to their own customers. The development of our new Ethernet Port Extension will make the PacketSpan portfolio even more attractive and available to many more end-customers, growing the potential of next-generation data-over SDH."

EPE effectively takes PacketSpan Ethernet interfaces out of the operator's exchange or central office and places them in customer premises. It uses electrical or optical Ethernet interfaces to connect to end customers' LAN infrastructures. Traffic is relayed over optical fiber, up to several kilometers long, terminating at a PacketSpan tributary card in the operator's network. PacketSpan then maps the end-customer's Ethernet traffic onto SDH, a highly secure and resilient optical transmission technology, which then sends it to its destination across the public core network and vice-versa. The operator manages the PacketSpan CPE remotely, as if it were part of network tributary card. This reduces operating costs and as well as improving reliability and manageability of the service.

Noam Lotan, president and CEO of MRV Communications, Inc. commented: "The vast majority of LAN traffic originates and terminates with the Ethernet protocol. End-to-end Gigabit Ethernet services are the Ultimate goal. Mapping customer's Ethernet traffic into SDH transport services provides the best of both worlds -- packet and circuit switched. Marconi is a world-class company and MRV is proud to provide Ethernet Access technology for PacketSpan. The value proposition to the end customers and to their service providers is compelling."

The new Ethernet Port Extension solution is managed by Marconi's ServiceOn Optical network-management system, ensuring seamless operation with the rest of the PacketSpan family.

Marconi Corp. plc

MRV Communications Inc.