Lucent Expands Internet Line with Nexabit Buy

Confirming recent speculation, Lucent Technologies Friday
acquired Nexabit Networks in a stock deal worth approximately $900 million.

Nexabit, which last week passed on previous buy-out offers, agreed to be bought by Lucent in a deal that will boost the company’s Internet product line and enable it to better compete with market leader Cisco Systems Inc.

Lucent’s recent acquisition of Ascend Communications was completed Thursday. While Ascend gives Lucent a line of asynchronous transfer mode switches,
which are designed to carry voice, data and video over the same network, the company lacked a state-of-the-art Internet router.

Based in Malborough, Mass., Nexabit is working on new switches that can transmit trillions of bits per second.

The transaction is expected to be completed by July 31. Mukesh Chatter, CEO and founder of Nexabit, will join Lucent as Advanced IP Core
Technologies Vice-President, in Lucent’s InterNetworking Systems Group.

“The communications revolution is fueling tremendous demand for more bandwidth in core networks,” said Curt Sanford, president of Lucent’s InterNetworking Systems group.

“This merger gives Lucent not only a leading product for ultra
high-speed IP core networks, but a terrific lead in delivering terabit-speed switch/routers that connect directly to optical networking systems.”

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