SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - March 3rd, 2001 - Despite heavy wind and rain for nearly a week, fSONA Communications set a new standard for flawless, 100-megabit-per-second transmission during a live demonstration of its optical wireless technology here.

During a first-of-its-kind live demo at the prestigious "Broadband Worldwide Wireless Forum," the company's SONAbeam™ transceivers transmitted a variety of multimedia applications at the same time without generating a single bit-error.

"We are excited by the results, but not really surprised," said Leigh McBain, director of Field Engineering. "Our system performed exactly as expected and designed. Still it's nice to know all our development work has paid off."

In a single business day, the company installed a 155-megabit optical wireless transceiver on the roof of the Moscone Exhibition Center, and aligned it with a second unit installed in a 26th floor hotel suite over a half mile away.

Transmitting through a hotel window on one end - and through inclement weather conditions for five days from February 16-20 - fSONA's optical wireless link performed perfectly. It transmitted 8 mbps of streaming video, 30 mbps of server downloads, a 25 mbps full-duplex packet generation, and 756 kbps full-duplex video conferencing all at the same time without a single dropped packet.

"We opened and closed the sliding window at the hotel several times," noted McBain, "and still our aggregate error count was zero. Not even heavy mist interfered with the link."

fSONA has engineered its first product offering for optimal performance over distances up to two kilometers. Later this year, the company is introducing additional optical wireless systems with ranges from 500 meters to 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles) and capacities up to 1.25 gigabits.

The system operates in the 1550nm wavelength, conforming to fiber optic networking industry standards, and requires no government licensing, while operating at the most competitive price per bit ratio in the industry.

For more information on ordering fSONA's family of optical wireless products, contact Raymond Gray, director of business development; or David Oberman, director of sales at (604) 273-6333.

About fSONA
fSONA Systems is recognized as the preferred provider of optical wireless solutions for government, enterprise and service provider markets around the globe. Leveraging leading edge advancements in 1550nm optical transmission, the SONAbeam™ family of systems, based on free-space-optics (FSO), use a globally unlicensed, wireless technology to provide speeds up to 2.5 Gbps over distances up to 7km. For more information visit www.fsona.com or www.free-space-optics.org

Further Information
For more information about fSONA, SONAbeam or Free-Space Optical Wireless, please contact:

604-273-6333
media@fsona.com

fSONA and SONAbeam® are trademarks of fSONA Networks. All other trademarks are properties of their respective companies.