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Two New Suites of Services Added to Lightpath's Intelligent Optical Network

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 November 2004, 09:00 CST

Metro Ethernet & Optical Transport Services Deliver Higher Bandwidth to Meet Varying Demands of Different Sized Customers

Lightpath(R), the business telecommunications services division of Cablevision Systems Corporation, today announced the commercial availability of Metro Ethernet and Optical Transport Services to customers in the New York Metropolitan Area.

"Lightpath understands that many businesses - regardless of their size - are looking to simplify their overall data and/or voice network design and management, while getting higher throughput speeds without spending more money," said Kevin Curran, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Lightpath. "Since Lightpath builds, owns and manages its fiber network, which connects directly to its customers' premises, we can deliver the performance they expect, increase cost efficiencies and provide them with scalable solutions for their varying bandwidth needs."

Industry analysts predict that adoption of Metro Ethernet and optical wavelength services will grow dramatically in the next few years and will ultimately replace existing legacy metro technologies. "Although primarily used to support applications such as Internet access and file transfer, respondents in our 2004 Metro Ethernet Survey earlier this year expect to double the amount of voice and video deployments over Ethernet within 24 months," said David Parks, Yankee Group's Telecommunication Strategies United States Senior Analyst. "We see the current U.S. market for Ethernet services at about $500 million and project a 57 percent compound annual growth rate through 2008, especially as Ethernet replaces some of the alternate WAN technologies like frame relay and ATM within the mid-size, large and enterprise markets."

Lightpath sees high demand for both of these new services from mid, large and enterprise businesses in the financial services, healthcare, government, education and carrier markets, where new data intensive applications are driving the demand for higher amounts of bandwidth.

For example, hospitals are starting to adopt electronic health records (EHR) which make it easier for health care providers to share relevant patient information, as well as Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS) that enable the storage and distribution of digital medical images. Metro Ethernet services are sufficient to manage the movement of EHR data back and forth from one building to another or to remote data centers. A PACS solution, however, is more bandwidth intensive, since it utilizes much larger files and more likely requires Optical Transport Services to accommodate this level of traffic.

Metro Ethernet Delivers Higher Bandwidth for Multi-Site Connectivity & Internet Access

Lightpath's new Metro Ethernet private line (E-Line) and Metro Ethernet local area network (E-LAN) services will provide small, medium and large business customers with the ability to establish point-to-point or multipoint connections between distributed locations at speeds between 10 Mbps and 300 Mbps. In addition, customers can utilize Lightpath Dedicated Internet Services over Metro Ethernet to access greater amounts of bandwidth and improve the performance of Internet-based resources during the workday.

"Lightpath Metro E-Line and Metro E-LAN services are ideal for rapidly growing businesses that are expanding their operations or adding facilities throughout the region," added Curran. "Customers that have traditionally used legacy private line services are realizing that they can get significantly more bandwidth, scalability and reliability while reducing costs and improving employee productivity."

Optical Transport Services Supply High Data Capacity Throughput

Lightpath Optical Transport Services deliver a full range of point-to-point connectivity options ranging from SONET (OC-48 to OC-192) to Gigabit Ethernet (1.25 Gbps to 10 Gbps). Lightpath Optical Transport Services is an ideal solution for companies where business continuity and disaster recovery are critical to their operations. For example, financial service firms running large storage area networks (SANs) that need to move large volumes of data to a remote location or data center for backup need the assurances of diverse and redundant network infrastructure to support their critical business applications.

Lightpath's Metro Ethernet and Optical Transport Services are offered with multiple customer protection levels, ranging from unprotected access for standard deployments to premium access protection and on-site equipment protection options, which are designed to fit any business application and budget.

Lightpath's ability to deliver these new services is a result of the Company's deployment of a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) core architecture and MPLS overlay in both the core and distribution layers of its network. The DWDM and MPLS upgrades have made it possible for Lightpath to offer "any-to-any" network connectivity between its customers' corporate locations.

About Lightpath

For more than 16-years, Lightpath, as part of one of the nation's leading communications companies, Cablevision Systems Corporation, has been designing and delivering innovative broadband telecommunications solutions for businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area. From its inception, meeting the evolving communications needs of businesses has been its sole focus and commitment. Today, thousands of organizations use its integrated voice, data and Internet services to increase their productivity, reduce operations costs, and enhance the ability to utilize ongoing advances in communications technology to take advantage of new business opportunities.

With 2003 revenue in excess of $178 million, Lightpath utilizes a state-of-the-art, all-digital network with more than 2,300 route miles of fiber optic cable (nearly 119,000 miles of actual fiber) and direct "first" or "last" mile access to more than 20,000 "on-net" commercial buildings serving more than 142,000 access lines and 27,000 dedicated Internet and broadband circuits. This enables Lightpath to deliver next generation solutions, such as Lightpath Metro Ethernet and Lightpath Optical Transport Services, with the diversity, scalability and reliability businesses demand in today's highly competitive and financially focused business market. For more information visit the Lightpath website at www.lightpath.net.

About Cablevision Systems Corporation

Cablevision Systems Corporation is one of the nation's leading entertainment, media and telecommunications companies. In addition to its broadband, cable, Internet and telephone offerings, the company owns and operates Rainbow Media Holdings, Inc. and its networks; Madison Square Garden and its teams; and, Clearview Cinemas. In addition, Cablevision operates New York's famed Radio City Music Hall. Additional information about Cablevision Systems Corporation is available on the Web at www.cablevision.com.

Source: Business Wire

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