NLR ANNOUNCES LIGHTING FIRST PATH OF NATIONAL FOOTPRINT - CHICAGO TO PITTSBURGH

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center Connects to Extensible Terascale Facility

PHOENIX, AZ - November 18, 2003 - National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR), a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies, today announced that it successfully lit the initial segment on its national footprint between Chicago and Pittsburgh - connecting the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) to the Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF), the backplane network for the National Science Foundation's Teragrid project, through the StarLight Facility in Chicago.

The deployment began early September 2003 with Cisco Systems, Inc. installing dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) extended long-haul platforms every 100 kilometers on intercity dark fiber NLR purchased from Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT). On November 14, meeting the target completion date, Cisco turned over seven 10 Gbps wavelengths

('lambdas') to NLR along the 674 fiber miles between the two cities.

"The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center chose the NLR infrastructure over leased fiber because of the flexibility allowed and the ability to use it as soon as possible," said Gwendolyn Huntoon, assistant director of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. "Additionally, we were thrilled with the role that Cisco Systems played during the build-out process. The level of support and cooperation shown by them was outstanding."

Tom West, CEO of National LambdaRail, Inc. said, "We are pleased that the first segment on the NLR infrastructure has been lit. It was very important to meet the time requirements of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the NLR schedule. The smoothness of this initial implementation demonstrated the cooperation among the professionals at Cisco, Level 3, StarLight, and the members of NLR. It gives us the confidence that the remaining paths will be lit as easily as this one."

NLR is currently working on the Seattle to Portland, Ore. path, scheduled for completion by mid-January 2004 and Portland to Sunnyvale, Calif., scheduled to be ready by mid-April 2004. Other segments on the national footprint include Pittsburgh to Washington D.C., mid-March 2004; Washington D.C. to Atlanta, mid-April 2004; Denver to Seattle, early June 2004; Atlanta to Jacksonville, mid- July2004; and Chicago to Denver, mid-July 2004. Implementation of Atlanta to Dallas; Dallas to San Diego; and, Washington D.C. to New York City are scheduled for July to December 2004.

Cisco Systems' participation in this unique effort is both as the key provider of equipment and as a major proponent of the NLR objectives to advance research in networking and all fields of science. Cisco technologies including optical DWDM multiplexers, Ethernet switches and IP routers are being deployed; as well as installation, testing, and product maintenance services.

Level 3 is the preferred provider of the dark fiber and collocation facilities on the NLR core backbone infrastructure.

# # #

About National LambdaRail

National LambdaRail, Inc. (NLR) is a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications. NLR puts the control, the power and the promise of experimental network infrastructure in the hands of our nation's scientists and researchers. Visit http://www.nationallambdarail.org for more information.

About The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center

The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh together with the Westinghouse Electric Company. It was established in 1986 and is supported by several federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and private industry. Visit http://www.psc.edu/ for more information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Michelle Pollak

National LambdaRail, Inc.

(202) 331-5345

media@nationallambdarail.org

---------------------------------------------------------------i2-news-+

For list utilities, archives, subscribe, unsubscribe, etc. please visit the ListProc web interface at

http://archives.internet2.edu/

---------------------------------------------------------------i2-news--