Cisco Metro Ethernet Press Summit, June 4, 2003 - Cisco Systems, Inc., today announced that HLkomm, the state telecommunications carrier for the Leipzig and Halle Region, has built out a Metro Ethernet backbone using Cisco® technology. The new Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure will run alongside HLkomm's Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) network and will help the carrier generate revenue by providing its business customers with access to services such as transparent LAN services, teleconferencing, remote storage, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and video surveillance in the future.

HLkomm will use the Cisco architecture to support three different variations of its HL Metro LAN product: Ethernet Connect, Ethernet WAN (wide-area network) and Managed IP WAN. HL Metro LAN helps provide business customers and carriers with the ability to interconnect different campus locations using virtual local-area networks (VLANs) and connect to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) WANs. The service also monitors network connections and helps ensures that all mission-critical routers remain operational.

HLkomm's Metro Ethernet Architecture is built with Cisco Catalyst® 3550 Series switches and Cisco 7200, 7300 and 7500 series routers. In addition, HLkomm is deploying Cisco 2600 and 3600 series routers.

"Cisco's Metro Ethernet technology helps enable us to offer voice, video and data services over the same converged network, as well as meet ever-changing market demands by developing our infrastructure in a cost-effective way,' said Gerd Kroll, chief technology officer at HLkomm. "Cisco is the market leader in this field and gave us an unrivalled level of expertise and support as we built our metro Ethernet backbone."

Benefits for HLkomm's Customers

To meet varying customer needs, the interfaces in HLkomm's Metro Backbone are compatible with 10/100/1000 BASE-T electrical Ethernet interfaces, as well as with optical 100BASE-FX or 1000BASE-SX/-LX/-ZX interfaces. This flexibility helps enable businesses to interconnect their different campus locations via Ethernet, using the same technology being deployed in their LANs.

HLkomm's customers therefore benefit from tight integration between their LANs and WANs, as well as affordable connectivity. Businesses can also be spared the effort and expense involved in converting different protocols, such as leased line, SDH, Frame Relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), in order to connect LANs and WANs.

If a customer has more than one office location, HLkomm can set up a dedicated virtual private network (VPN) over its Ethernet network, which is then used to connect the different campuses. Customers have access to connection speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s and for the first time will be able to benefit from the same kind of connection speeds over their WAN network as they already have available on their LAN.

Flexible Bandwidth Offer

"Using the new Cisco Metro Ethernet solution, HLkomm is able to better scale its bandwidth offer to customers," commented Michael Bayer, director, Service Provider Marketing for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Cisco. "Previously it was only possible to deliver speeds of 2, 34, 155 and 622 megabits per second and even then it was potentially expensive to implement. Now, without major network overhaul or necessarily additional investment, HLkomm can deliver speeds of anywhere between 1 megabit per second and 1 gigabit per second."

For HLkomm, the ability to scale bandwidth is delivered via software configuration. Future bandwidth requirements can be met by following a migration path that extends using 10 Gigabit Ethernet and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) to attain potential connection speeds of up to 80 Gbit/s. HLkomm is also able to dynamically assign bandwidth because of this packet-based architecture. Overall, this scalability and flexibility helps provide HLkomm with a competitive edge.

For HLkomm, the new Ethernet infrastructure helps reduce operating costs, and the carrier is now in a position to implement new customer projects very quickly. Most of the new backbone network uses HLkomm's own infrastructure, but the carrier is also working with the local authorities as well as regional energy companies, in order to extend its network overland.

For further information about Cisco Metro Ethernet Switching solutions, please visit:www.cisco.com/go/metroethernetswitching