Lucent Technologies' IP Navigator MPLS Advances Deployment of MPLS Standard

Business Wire, May 9, 2000

Business & Technology Editors

NetWorld Interop 2000

(N I Booth 5863)

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2000

Lucent's MPLS Solution Continues to Innovate Beyond Today's

MPLS Standards With IP QoS And New Services

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) today announced it is demonstrating Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) interoperability as part of the MPLS InteropNet iLabs (iLabs) test being performed at NetWorld Interop. Lucent is participating in the MPLS interoperability test with its implementation of MPLS, IP Navigator(TM) MPLS, and industry- leading Multiservice Wide Area Network (WAN) switches, the CBX 500(TM) and GX 550(TM). The iLabs test demonstrates that IP Navigator MPLS now supports standards-based, multi-vendor MPLS interoperability. The iLabs demonstration is located in the main lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center at NetWorld Interop 2000 in Las Vegas through May 11th.

Participating in the iLabs test, Lucent is demonstrating MPLS Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) traffic engineering signaling over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) to set up Label Switched Paths (LSPs) and transfer of data. Lucent's multipoint LSPs architecture supports the largest number of nodes per network in the industry, and its distributed signaling processing architecture supports the highest LSP set up rate per platform providing the most scalable MPLS-based solution in the industry. With IP Navigator MPLS, service providers can now perform traffic engineering and multi-vendor interoperability in their next-generation multiservice networks. In addition, service providers can leverage their existing investment in Lucent multiservice networks to deploy new IP-based services, resulting in significant cost savings.

"Our standards-based MPLS solution, IP Navigator MPLS, is now interoperable with a wide variety of vendors' MPLS compliant equipment, which provides a greater market opportunity for service providers for deploying new IP-based services," said Steve Kaufman, vice president and general manager, Core Switching, Lucent Technologies InterNetworking Systems. "Lucent's leading MPLS multiservice network solution goes beyond standard MPLS adding advanced features such as IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), IP Quality of Service (QoS) and IP Multicast, allowing service providers to quickly generate additional revenue by rapidly deploying new differentiated services."

Lucent's IP Navigator MPLS is the only MPLS-based solution that provides "Absolute" QoS necessary for the newest IP-based services such as toll quality voice, video over IP, content delivery and IP based VPNs. Traditional IP networks do not support these capabilities.

More Than 30 Customers Worldwide Have Deployed IP Navigator MPLS From the edge through the core, IP Navigator MPLS extends Lucent's multiservice WAN switching products to provide carrier-class IP services along with Frame Relay and ATM. Lucent's value-add MPLS-based solution enables service providers to rapidly deploy differentiated services that meet their customers' continually evolving needs from a single managed QoS network. One of the competitive advantages of MPLS for service providers is the ability to provide differentiated QoS and service level agreements to their customers.

One of the UK's leading data and Internet solutions providers, Thus plc, has deployed IP Navigator MPLS supporting their IP-based network services on an IP/MPLS/ATM multiservice network infrastructure using Lucent's CBX 500 and B-STDX 9000(TM) multiservice WAN switches. IP Navigator MPLS is a key enabler within Thus' next-generation multiservice core network allowing them to provide technically advanced services for their customers. Their new network architecture enables them to rapidly deploy highly differentiated products including Voice over IP, Virtual Private Networks and IP Multicast, with guaranteed levels of service. Thus is also using Lucent's NavisCore(TM) and NavisXtend(TM) network management system for fast and easy deployment of new IP Services.

IP Navigator MPLS is currently deployed in more than 30 networks worldwide including China Unicom, Telefonica, Embratel and CNM Network.

IP Navigator MPLS Innovates in Advance of MPLS

Lucent's MPLS-based solution offers service providers the ability to integrate the flexibility of Layer 3 routing with the performance of Lucent's multiservice WAN switches, and provides innovations beyond today's MPLS standards, offering the industry's most advanced value-added features. These features include "Absolute" QoS, VPN routing and IP Multicast.

IP Navigator MPLS is the only multiservice MPLS-based solution available that provides an "Absolute" level of QoS for IP allowing service providers to support applications such as toll quality voice, video, and real time data. This means that Lucent's multiservice MPLS implementation is the only solution that brings telephony-like QoS characteristics to IP providing dedicated bandwidth for IP, on a dynamic and on-demand basis. This level of QoS is required for delivery of real-time services, normally only associated with telco-quality, carrier-class, connection-oriented switched networks.