Tellium Names Robert DeSantis Executive Vice President; Leading Telecommunications Veteran Joins Optical Networking Company

Business Wire, Nov 8, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

OCEANPORT, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 2000

Tellium, Inc., provider of the world's first in-service intelligent optical switches, today announced that Robert J. DeSantis, 44, has joined the company as executive vice president. DeSantis is responsible for Tellium's financial, legal, corporate development and administrative affairs and will report to Harry Carr, Tellium's chairman and chief executive officer.

Before joining Tellium, DeSantis was employed for 15 years by Citizens Communications Company (NYSE: CZN), a communications service provider with headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, where he has served as general counsel and then chief financial officer, vice president and treasurer for Citizens and its subsidiaries.

"We are delighted to have a professional like Bob join the executive management team at Tellium," said Harry Carr. "Bob's expertise and leadership capabilities will be very important to us and will immediately add to Tellium's capabilities."

DeSantis, a Boston, Massachusetts native, earned a Bachelors degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Juris Doctorate from Boston College Law School.

DeSantis is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant and is a member of the Bars of the State of Connecticut, the Federal District Court of the District of Connecticut, the United States Tax Court and the United States Supreme Court. He is also a member of the Financial Executives Institute, American Bar Association, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Connecticut Bar Association and the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants.

About Tellium

Tellium, developer of the world's first in-service, intelligent optical switches, delivers high capacity, high density, cost-effective solutions to service providers offering advanced optical services. Using Tellium's Aurora Full-Spectrum(TM) product line, service providers can tame the dramatic growth in network traffic to quickly and reliably deliver services in anticipation of their customers' dynamic bandwidth needs. Founded in 1997 by optical experts from Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies), Tellium is led by a team of industry veterans from top telecommunications and data communications companies worldwide, including Ascend Communications, AT&T, Bay Networks, Cascade, Cisco, Lucent Technologies, MCI, Nortel Networks, Telecordia and Yurie, among others. More information is available at www.tellium.com.

Tellium...smarter, faster optical networks.

Statements in this announcement other than historical data and information constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements.