Orckit Communications & Fujitsu Network Communications Sign North American xDLS Marketing & Development Contract

The agreement calls for an exclusive relationship between Orckit and FNC with respect to DSL products for the North American market. In addition to reselling Orckit’s FastInternetTM xDSL broadband access system and other DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) products, the companies will work to integrate Orckit’s xDSL technology into FNC’s FACTR® SONET access and transport platform for an end-to-end broadband system solution for network service providers. In the near term, FNC’s sales force will offer Orckit’s FastInternet, HDSL and ADSL products to customers, complete with system support, training and installation, beginning in May.

DSL products are designed to provide high-speed modem access over existing copper telephone lines, enabling services such as fast Internet access, interactive multimedia and corporate intranets. The DSL products will complement FNC’s market-leading SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) product family. In addition, the network systems developed by the strategic alliance between FNC and Orckit will work with multiple vendors’ customer premises equipment.

Over the next several years, the two companies will continue to pursue shared development, integration and marketing toward the release of mutual products. The tight cooperation between the companies includes a shared manufacturing agreement, which covers xDSL line cards, xDSL concentrators, management software and hardware and central office splitters.

"Our strategic alliance details a long-range business plan for joint activity and cooperative development into the future, unlike other agreements between xDSL vendors and their partners that have simply been for the supply of chips or products," said Jim Szeliga, general manager of Orckit’s U.S. subsidiary.

Ron Martin, senior vice president of planning and development for FNC, pointed out that service provider customers will benefit from the products that the alliance makes available.

"There is a great synergy between the product offerings of Fujitsu and Orckit," said Martin. "DSL technologies enable a natural extension of carriers’ broadband SONET networks. This alliance allows our two companies to address all of the carriers’ access applications. The FACTR platform, integrated with Orckit’s xDSL technology and products, can address all copper access applications, such as digital loop carrier and central office-fed lines.

"Carriers can now migrate their various networks into a single, integrated one, with the added benefit of centralized management and operations."

Orckit Communications Ltd. Develops and manufactures a wide range of high-speed local loop communications systems that take advantage of state-of-the-art digital signal processing and VLSI technologies, including HDSL (High bit rate Digital Subscriber Line), ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and VDSL (Very high bit rate Digital Subscriber Line. Orckit is an active participant in many standards bodies concerning ADSL. Its World Wide Web site is at http://www.orckit.com.

Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., with headquarters in Richardson, Texas, is a leader in developing, manufacturing and marketing fiber-optic networking platforms for delivering voice, data and video services to residential and business users. The company also develops software that allows customers to perform in-service management and monitoring of the network. Customers include local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, competitive access providers and cable TV operators, as well as large private networks in North America. Fujitsu Network Communications is part of Fujitsu Limited, a $36 billion global technology leader in computers, telecommunications and microelectronics. Its World Wide Web site is at http://www.fujitsu.com/FNC.

FastInternetTM is a trademark of Orckit Communications, Ltd. FACTR® is a registered trademark of Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc.

(Certain matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, risks in product and technology development and rapid technological change, product demand, the impact of competitive products and pricing, market acceptance, the lengthy sales cycle, changing economic conditions and other risk factors detailed in the Company’s United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings.)