Frontier Communications Joins Forces with Lucent Technologies to Build New Voice Over ip (Voip) Network With Softswitch Technology

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Collaboration Includes Trunking Gateway Products from Sonus Networks; Frontier Expects its Network Traffic to be 100% IP by 2002

Murray Hill, N.J. and Rochester, N.Y. - Frontier Communications announced today it is joining forces with Lucent Technologies to design and build an IP telephony (Internet Protocol) network that is expected to carry all of Frontier's voice traffic by the year 2002. The new IP telephony network also provides Frontier with a software services creation platform, whereby new products will be developed in the network and deployed quickly and economically. Lucent will also supply Frontier with trunking gateway technology from Sonus Networks, Inc., a privately held company headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts.

At the core of Frontier's IP telephony solution is Lucent Technologies' softswitch, a Bell Labs-developed software switch for IP networks and Sonus Networks' GSX9000 Open Services Switch. Lucent's softswitch software runs on standard computer work stations and provides the reliability and features of traditional phone switches at a fraction of the cost. The combination of the Lucent softswitch and the Sonus GSX9000 provides the scalability and performance required to make IP telephony a viable solution for large-scale network deployment in Frontier's network.

"By collaborating with IP innovators such as Lucent and Sonus, Frontier is the first to make 'carrier class' IP telephony a reality," said Rolla Huff, Frontier's president and COO. "This world-class IP network gives us the scalability and reliability we need to deliver our IP application networking services with Silicon economics. Beginning with e-mail in the third quarter, we'll offer outsourced IP applications that, when combined with this VoIP platform, will evolve into unified messaging by early 2000."

Lucent will also provide trunking and universal access gateway products to Frontier for enabling interoperability between its existing circuit network and its emerging IP telephony network.

"Over the past quarter, we've conducted extensive testing of trunking gateway and softswitch technology, simulating live production network environments in our Denver labs," said Brian Fink, Frontier's vice president of systems and products. "We'll initially deploy IP telephony in three U.S. cities next month and plan to expand our network to include 15 to 20 cities nationwide by the first half of 2000. We expect to have 100 percent of our traffic traversing our IP network by year-end 2002."

While the initial rollout is predominately in the U.S., Frontier's VoIP service architecture is easily extendable internationally. "Frontier is building a network designed to provide the speed, capacity and advanced services its customers across the nation require," said Nina Aversano, president, North America for Lucent's Global Service Provider Business. "Lucent's softswitch technology was developed to meet just those needs. This new technology will enable us to help customers such as Frontier quickly design, build and evolve communications networks that can handle any service imaginable - from express-lane data connections to next-door-quality voice calls."

Under a separate agreement with Sonus Networks, Lucent is providing Frontier with the Sonus GSX9000 Open Services Switch, a trunking gateway product that provides high capacity access between the new IP network and Frontier's existing local and long distance circuit switched networks. The Sonus GSX9000 is the industry's only "any-to-any" voice-over-packet central office switch that extends the life, scalability, and services potential of today's public voice network.

"We're thrilled to be partnering with Frontier and Lucent in making packet telephony a reality today," said Hassan Ahmed, Sonus' president and CEO. "Our vision has been to enable a new generation of applications for integrated voice and data services, through the migration of telephony from circuit networks to packet networks. With their new voice-over-packet network and Lucent's Softswitch technology, Frontier is taking a leadership position in the industry, delivering not only the traditional telephony services their customers expect, but also innovative, new applications enabled by IP."

About Frontier

Frontier Communications, a unit of Frontier Corporation (NYSE:FRO), is one of the leading providers of integrated communications services-including Internet, IP and data applications, long distance, local telephone and wireless-to business customers nationwide. The self-healing Frontier Optronics NetworkSM provides customers with faster transmission speeds, greater bandwidth capacity and unrivaled reliability. For information, visit the Frontier web site at www.frontiercorp.com.

About Lucent Technologies

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. For more information about Lucent Technologies, visit its Web site at www.lucent.com.

About Sonus Networks

Sonus Networks, Inc. is delivering a new class of carrier solutions that enable the movement of telephony to converged packet networks, and the development of a new generation of innovative voice and data services. The Sonus Packet Telephony suite and Open Services Architecture* (OSA) cut the time-to-market for competitive new service products from years to weeks, allowing carriers and third-party developers to sustain and expand marketshare, and build important new revenue streams. Its highly scalable products fully interoperate with and extend the life and utility of today's public network. Additional information is available at: http://www.sonusnet.com