Hassan Ahmed, Rubin Gruber and Michael Hluchyj Receive New England Entrepreneur of the Year Award

WESTFORD, Mass., June 22, 2001 – Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS), a leading provider of voice infrastructure solutions for the new public network, was awarded the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year(R) Award for leadership demonstrated by Sonus executives Hassan Ahmed, Rubin Gruber and Michael Hluchyj. The Sonus management team was recognized for excellence and success in innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to the company by a panel of independent, regional judges selected by Ernst & Young LLP.

"Sonus' leaders embody the keen entrepreneurial spirit and bottom-line results that are the hallmark of the Ernst & Young award," said Joseph Vicidomino, partner and New England area leader for the technology, communications and entertainment industries sector at Ernst & Young. "Together they built an innovative, sustainable and profitable company by bringing new solutions to the carrier market that have greatly enhanced the long-standing telecommunications industry. We are pleased to present Sonus Networks with the New England Entrepreneur of the Year award for achievement in the telecommunications category."

"We are honored to receive this significant award and are gratified on behalf of the entire company," said Hassan Ahmed, president and CEO, Sonus Networks. "Entrepreneurial ideas and practices are highly valued at Sonus. Our employees strive to deliver excellence in all that they do, and we are delighted with the Ernst & Young recognition for our efforts." 

Hassan Ahmed is Sonus' president and CEO. Rubin Gruber is chairman and founder of Sonus Networks. Michael Hluchyj is chief technology officer and also a founder of Sonus Networks. Ernst & Young presented the award to Sonus' management team at a reception in Boston, Massachusetts on June 21, 2001. As regional winners for the awards, Ahmed, Gruber and Hluchyj will compete with winners in 47 other regions for national awards at the National Entrepreneur of the Year Conference in Palm Springs, California, this November. 

The Entrepreneur of the Year awards program was created and is produced by professional services firm Ernst & Young LLP to honor outstanding entrepreneurs whose ingenuity and perseverance have created and sustained successful growing business ventures. The New England Entrepreneur of the Year Awards program was founded in 1987 and is produced by Ernst & Young and sponsored by Citigroup Private Bank, Hale and Dorr LLP, J. Robert Scott, Multi-Media Holdings and William Gallagher Associates. Nationally, the Award is sponsored by USA Today, The Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the NASDAQ Stock Market and CNN. For additional information on the awards, visit http://neeoy.ey.com.

About Sonus Networks

Sonus Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of voice infrastructure products for the new public network. Sonus' solutions enable service providers to deploy an integrated network capable of carrying both voice and data traffic, and to deliver a range of innovative, new services. The Sonus Open Services Architecture (OSA) and award-winning Packet Telephony suite cut the time-to-market for competitive new service products, allowing carriers and third-party developers to expand market share and build important new revenue streams. Its highly scalable products fully interoperate with and extend the life and utility of today's public network. Sonus embodies in its management and staff decades of experience in developing carrier-class voice, data and multimedia solutions for implementation in the world's largest networks. Sonus, founded in 1997, is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts. Additional information on Sonus is available at http://www.sonusnet.com.

Open Services Architecture is a trademark of Sonus Networks. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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