Williams Communications to Test Breakthrough Terabit Capacity Networking Technologies; Trials Will Push Barriers of Speed and Flexibility of Optical Networks - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Dec 13, 1999

Avici Systems has been selected as the latest participant in a series of field trials Williams Communications will launch early next year on a nearly 2,000-mile stretch of its national fiber-optic network between Houston and suburban Washington, D.C. Participants expect to shatter existing photonic speed and capacity records, establishing new benchmarks for the rapidly evolving telecommunications marketplace.

Williams Communications' tests, first announced last month, will measure the performance and interoperability of a range of innovative high-speed equipment and software from companies like Avici Systems of North Billerica, Mass. The Williams Multi-Service Broadband Network has received widespread industry recognition for a unique architecture that allows optimum use of the most promising new optical technologies and supports throughput at terabit speeds.

"It is our intent, as the premier provider of expert carrier services for some of the most sophisticated customers in the world, to constantly seek out new technology partners such as Avici Systems," said Howard Janzen, president and chief executive officer of Williams Communications. "Our award-winning network already is unmatched in reliability and flexibility in part because our approach is to ally with the top innovators in the business. This is consistent with our history over the past 15 years, perfecting a vendor- independent strategy that allows us to constantly evaluate new technologies in search of the best solutions for our customers."

Williams Communications, Inc., a subsidiary of Williams Communications Group, Inc., focuses on enabling its long distance and local carrier, Internet service provider and utilities customers to be successful in the markets they service by providing them with a full range of network services. Its long distance fiber-optic network, already the largest among non-legacy providers, is on budget and a full year ahead of the original construction schedule announced in 1998. It will reach 33,000 route miles and 125 cities by the end of next year.

Williams will trial Avici's Terabit Switch/Router (TSR) platform. The test will focus on TSR's Composite Trunking capability, which is designed to add and drop bandwidth dynamically, without human intervention and with unprecedented speed and flexibility. Interoperability with Williams' current vendors, including Nortel, Sycamore, Cisco and Lucent, will be a key focus of the trials.

"Williams is the benchmark for evaluating and successfully applying the most advanced telecommunications technologies in the world," said Matthew Bross, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Williams Communications. "Our trial of Avici's equipment is another step in our strategy to reach terabit speeds on our network without forklift upgrades, while providing our customers with the redundancy and quality of services required for their mission-critical applications."

The Avici TSR is built with scalability, flexibility and resiliency to support a vast number of multi-megabit, "always-on" Internet connections and can scale easily from 2.5 gigabits to 6 terabits, providing 300 times more throughput for native TCP/IP-based Internet traffic than existing architectures.

"Williams' trial of the TSR is another example of the recognition within the carrier community of our product as a next-generation backbone platform," said Surya Panditi, president and chief executive officer of Avici Systems. "Williams' emphasis on just-in-time bandwidth provisioning makes it a perfect candidate for Avici's Terabit Switch/Router."

"Many carriers have terabit elements in their networks," said Bross, who leads development of network architecture for Williams Communications. "But most terabit technologies are trapped inside gigabit boxes or connected to megabit links. It is our goal at Williams to be the first carrier to unleash true, end-to-end terabit capacity on the market. Low-cost, on-demand bandwidth will enable a new generation of applications and businesses."

The trial of Avici's TSR will enable Williams to evaluate the integration of packet-based and core optical technologies. Last month, Williams announced it would trial the Corvis CorWave suite of all-optical products. In that trial, the base system will begin at 400 Gbps and scale seamlessly to 2.4 Tbps (terabits per second) without in-field upgrades.

Williams Communications Group is the parent company of Williams Communications, North America's only exclusively carrier-focused fiber-optic network and the largest independent source of end-to-end integrated business communications solutions -- data, voice or video. Based in Tulsa, Okla., Williams Communications has 9,000 employees primarily in North America, with offices in Europe and Asia and investments in South America and Australia. Approximately 85 percent of the stock of Williams Communications Group is held by Williams (NYSE: WMB) which, in 1985, became the first energy company to harness its core competency as a builder of networks to enable competition in the communications industry. Additional information is available at www.williams.com and www.williamscommunications.com.