ONI Gets Equant Contract

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- ONI Systems Corp. (Nasdaq:ONIS - news), a leading provider of optical telecommunications systems for metropolitan and regional markets, today announced a multi-million dollar agreement with Equant (NYSE:ENT - news; Euronext Paris: EQU), a leading provider of seamless international data network services to multinational businesses in more than 220 countries and territories. Equant plans to use ONI equipment to light fiber that it has purchased for local point of presence interconnects to its long-distance wavelengths. ONI has already begun helping Equant execute on its plans by deploying the ONLINE transport platform in the Equant network located in London and Paris. The deployments began in the first quarter of 2001. "The challenge in every city is different. In some cases it is fiber scarcity, while in others the need is for new services not available with first generation optics, such as SONET/SDH. Strong network management as delivered by ONI in its OPTX Software Suite cuts across all these issues, improving our control of local networks in real time. This capability, paired with ONI's robust ONLINE transport platform, makes us very comfortable selecting ONI as our preferred metro fiber equipment provider going forward," said Jack Norris, head of Customer Service and Network, Equant.ONI Systems Inc. Equant