Dallas, Texas and Grand Rapids, Mich. - September 16, 2002 - Cisco Systems, Inc. and US Signal announced today that US Signal has selected the Cisco ONS 15600 Multiservice Switching Platform for evaluation. The Cisco ONS 15600 is the newest product in the Cisco Complete Optical Multiservice Edge and Transport (COMET) portfolio.

"We selected the ONS 15600 to evaluate because we already have several Cisco optical products that have performed very successfully in our network," said US Signal President Barry Raterink. "We are evaluating this new Cisco optical solution because we expect that it will help reduce expenses by lowering training and operational costs."

"The Cisco ONS 15600 combines the capabilities of the industry-leading ONS 15454 Multiservice Provisioning Platform with carrier-class features and industry-leading density in a platform targeted to the metro area," said Jayshree Ullal, Senior Vice President, Optical Transport Group, Cisco Systems. "It cost-effectively delivers next-generation data, voice, and video services."

The Cisco ONS 15600 brings greater revenue potential and is designed for lower first cost and helps achieve lowest life-cycle cost by delivering multiple network elements in a single platform. It brings all the functionality of multiple metro systems including SONET (Synchronous Optical Network)/SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) multiplexers and digital cross-connect network elements together in one easy-to-use platform. The Cisco ONS 15600 is scheduled to be available the fourth quarter calendar year of 2002.

US Signal has the following optical products in their network: Cisco ONS 15216, ONS 15327, ONS 15454, and Cisco Transport Manager. For more information about these products, go to http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/44/jump/optical_platforms.shtml.

About Cisco Complete Optical Multiservice Edge and Transport Portfolio

The Cisco COMET product line offers maximum service velocity, density, variety, and capacity, building the foundation to accelerate IP and optical networking. Cisco COMET news and information can be found at http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/servpro/solutions/optical/.