Rami Hadar Joins Native Networks as CEO

Rami Hadar Joins Native Networks as CEO Seasoned Start-up Executive to lead Native Networks -- The Metro Ethernet Access Company LONDON -- 21st October 2002 -- Native Networks, a leading vendor of Metro Ethernet solutions and technology for optical access networks, announced today that it has appointed Rami Hadar as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Rami Hadar Joins Native Networks as CEO

Seasoned Start-up Executive to lead Native Networks -- The Metro Ethernet Access Company

LONDON -- 21st October 2002 -- Native Networks, a leading vendor of Metro Ethernet solutions and technology for optical access networks, announced today that it has appointed Rami Hadar as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Hadar will lead Native Networks in the ongoing introduction and deployment of its Metro Ethernet products and technology for the optical access network. Native Networks provides innovative carrier-class solutions enabling carriers to offer differentiated Metro Ethernet services with increased flexibility and efficiency over existing SDH/SONET or greenfield infrastructure rollouts.

Commenting on his appointment Hadar said, Native Networks is extremely well positioned to address the expanding Optical Edge" and Metro Ethernet segments. In the current climate, carriers must find creative ways to generate top line growth by delivering advanced Ethernet services while leveraging their existing SDH and SONET infrastructure. Natives products provide carriers with an evolutionary path to Metro Ethernet and enable advanced services such as Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) with minimum Capex investment and without compromising their traditional voice and leased line service offerings." He added, I am very pleased to be working with Natives founders, Gilad Goren and Menahem Kaplan, who have done a great job assembling a very capable and talented team, along with a group of top-tier investors who bring great added value to the company.

"We are delighted that Rami will be heading up the Native Networks team at this exciting time in the company's evolution" remarked Erel Margalit, Managing Partner of JVP. "His extensive experience in building start-ups into market leaders will be invaluable in leading Native Networks to major market success."

Prior to joining Native Networks, Rami Hadar was co-founder of Ensemble Communications. As Executive VP of Marketing and Business Development, Mr. Hadar was instrumental in positioning Ensemble as a leading vendor in the wireless broadband access space. Through a series of joint marketing agreements and strategic investments, Mr. Hadar established a strategic alliance program for Ensemble that included relationships with a number of tier-1 vendors and system integrators. During his years at Ensemble Mr. Hadar served as a board member of the US based Wireless Communication Association.

Prior to founding Ensemble Mr. Hadar was the co-founder and CEO of CTP Systems in Israel. In 1995 CTP was acquired by DSP Communication, which was eventually acquired by Intel. Before the acquisition CTP spun off its cable modem group, which after two years was acquired by Terayon. Mr. Hadar holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Technion University in Haifa, Israel.

About Native Networks

Native Networks innovative solutions enable carriers to offer differentiated Metro Ethernet services, more flexibly and efficiently over existing and planned infrastructure. These advanced carrier-class connectivity solutions, designed for deployment in "first-mile" metro access infrastructure, transport and aggregate Metro Ethernet packets alongside legacy circuits/TDM services in their Native" form over dark fibre, existing SDH/SONET infrastructure or DWDM, in a transition-friendly solution. They enable carriers and service providers to increase differentiation and profitability by delivering a service bundle, which includes advanced layer-2 Metro Ethernet services such as Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS). The technology is founded on an advanced, patent-pending multiplexing scheme and unique traffic management technology to provide optimal use of optical or SDH/SONET infrastructure with guaranteed QoS per customer and the ability to engineer to strict SLAs. Native Networks has developed a unique family of intelligent, data aware Metro Ethernet + SDH/SONET transport solutions: including Add/Drop statistical Multiplexers (ADsM), Dense Service Aggregation nodes and CPE/CLE access devices.

Founded in 1999, Native Networks is funded by several North American and European venture capital funds including Anschutz Investment Company, Apax Partners Israel, Israel Seed Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), SkyPoint Capital Corporation and Soros Private Equity Partners. The company is headquartered in Maidenhead, UK and retains extensive research and development facilities in Petah Tikva, Israel.

Further information about Native Networks can be found at http://www.nativenetworks.com/

Press Contacts:
         
Colin Evans   
colin.evans@nativenetworks.com   

Debbie Gispan
Deborah.Gispan@nativenetworks.com
   
Native Networks Ltd         
+44 (0)870 162 3003