LONDON, May 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Four awards celebrate service provider and product excellence

The winners of Light Reading's prestigious Ethernet Expo: Europe 2009 Awards were announced yesterday as a finale to the highly successful conference and exhibition at the ExCel Conference Centre in London. In the Vendor of the Year category two winners were announced: Alcatel-Lucent's Service Router Portfolio for the Best Infrastructure Product, and ANDA EtherReach for the Best Access Product. Meanwhile British Telecom's Etherflow UK scooped the Best New Service, and COLT Telecom the Best Product Portfolio in the Service Provider of the Year categories.

The Ethernet Expo Europe Awards are given to those carriers and infrastructure vendors who demonstrate Carrier Ethernet leadership and innovation that is driving the market today, stated Joseph Braue, Group Director/Senior Vice President, Light Reading.

The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts including Joe Braue; Stan Hubbard, Senior Analyst of Heavy Reading, Light Reading's technology research arm; Ray LeMaistre, Light Reading's International News Editor; and Rajiv Datta, CTO of AboveNet.

In the Ethernet Service Provider of the Year categories the Best Product Portfolio award went to COLT, ahead of the other finalists, Exponential-e and ntl:Telewest, because of its outstanding breadth of Ethernet offerings of 2-Mbit/s to 10-Gbit/s services spanning 14 countries with fiber connectivity to over 16,000 buildings. Meanwhile, the clear winner in the Best New Service category was BT for its innovative BT Etherflow UK service, which comprises more than 614 access core nodes delivering nationwide Ethernet business coverage for managed EPL and EVPL circuits.

The Carrier Ethernet Vendor of the Year Best Infrastructure Product, awarded to the network equipment supplier shipping the best new Carrier Ethernet infrastructure platform in Europe since last year's European Ethernet Expo, went to Alcatel-Lucent ahead of the other finalists, Cisco's ASR 9000 Series Routers and Juniper's MX960 Ethernet Services Router. The award was given on the strength of Alcatel-Lucent's Service Router Portfolio (7750 SR, 7450 ESS, 7210 SAS, 7705 SAR). The judges especially commended the new FP2 chip set, allowing network processing and traffic management of speeds up to 100G, plus application assurance giving visibility for performance of business apps across virtual private networks. Also of note was Alcatel-Lucent's integrated PBB and VPLS solutions.

The Carrier Ethernet Vendor of the Year Best Access Product, awarded to the network equipment supplier shipping the best new Carrier Ethernet access platform (CEAP) in Europe since last year's European Ethernet Expo, went to ANDA EtherReach with EtherProbe, on the strength of its being the first Ethernet performance and SLA verification tool that can collect and report QOS metrics with live customer traffic. Other finalists were ADVA with its FSP 150 CC825 Carrier Ethernet Access Platform and Cisco's ME 3400E Ethernet Access Switch Series.

To view more information on the award winners and to view the video report click here: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=176746

Contact: Amy Averbook Director of Corporate Marketing Light Reading +1-212-925-0020 x112

About Ethernet Expo: Europe 2009

Chaired by Heavy Reading's Stan Hubbard, Ethernet Expo: Europe 2009 is the premier event covering the hot topic of Carrier Ethernet network technologies and services in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In addition to providing a superb networking opportunity for service providers, equipment manufacturers, and enterprise MIS/IT decision makers, this year's Ethernet Expo Europe was the first to be open to all interested European network/telecom press and media.

About Light Reading

Founded in 2000, Light Reading (www.lightreading.com) is the leading online media, research, and focused event company serving the US$3 trillion worldwide communications market. Lightreading.com is the ultimate source for technology and financial analysis of the communications industry, leading the media sector in terms of traffic, content, and reputation. Light Reading's research arms, Heavy Reading and Pyramid Research, provide the most comprehensive communications research, market data, and technology analysis in close to 100 markets around the world. Light Reading produces nearly 20 targeted communications events including TelcoTV, Ethernet Expo New York and Ethernet Expo London, The Tower Summit @ CTIA, and Optical Expo, as well as focused one-day events tailored for cable, mobile, and wireline executives. Light Reading was acquired by United Business Media in August 2005 and operates as a unit of TechWeb.

About TechWeb

TechWeb (http://techweb.com/aboutus), the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million* business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events, Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat, and VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial Technology Network; and the market-leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, and Wall Street Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services including next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than US$2.5 billion.

*13.3 million business decision-makers: based on number of monthly connections

About United Business Media Limited

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting, and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM's businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities - from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelery traders, from farmers to pharmacists - with integrated events, online, print, and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com.

Amy Averbook, Director of Corporate Marketing, Light Reading, +1-212-925-0020 x112, averbook@lightreading.com