London UK, May 17 2004 - Nexagent, the provider of MPLS IP-VPN Interconnect and Management Services, today announced City Lifeline as its first partner and host of the first MPLS IP-VPN Peering Point. Nexagent has created a partner programme to work with leading co-location facility providers around the world to rapidly roll out its Network Service Grid – the combination of interconnected carriers, integrators and Nexagent Peering Points. The London Peering Point alone makes it possible for enterprises, carriers and integrators to use Nexagent’s MPLS IP-VPN Interconnect Service to access tens of thousands of carrier PoPs worldwide and create wide area networks (WANs) offering total flexibility for change, lower risk of business downtime with lower total cost.

Colin Berthelsen of City Lifeline says “Nexagent’s MPLS IP-VPN Interconnect Service plugs a huge gap in today’s fragmented telecoms market. I am very pleased and proud to be associated with a technology that we believe will become a standard in years to come. The combination of Nexagent and City Lifeline’s technologies and skills will further enhance the range of services we can offer enterprises, carriers and integrators.”

Today multi-carrier networks are both inevitable and often the optimal solution. All carriers are different; therefore enterprises, carriers, integrators and virtual network operators all face the challenges of creating multi-carrier MPLS IP-VPNs. These challenges include complex commercial negotiations, manual integration of different carrier networks, end-to-end monitoring, mapping different class of service schemas and different operational support systems. Nexagent has a fresh approach, but is not a carrier, integrator or virtual network operator. Nexagent’s combination of Peering Points and a Life Cycle Management System standardises and automates key steps in the design, implementation and ongoing monitoring of a multi-carrier MPLS IP-VPN. Multi-carrier MPLS IP-VPNs are created by selecting the preferred MPLS carrier in each geography and interconnecting them using Nexagent Peering Points (NPPs) in co-location sites in key cities worldwide.

Chris Gare, co-founder of Nexagent and VP of Service Grid Development, said, “City Lifeline has been a strong, active supporter of the Nexagent vision from the very start and will be a key commercial partner for Nexagent in the roll-out of our Peering Points globally. They implicitly understood how the Nexagent approach represents a new way for enterprises, carriers and integrators to drive down costs and improve service reliability by moving to increasingly automated, application aware infrastructure. Enterprises, carriers and integrators can now access thousands of carrier PoPs worldwide through City Lifeline’s Peering Point without the complexity of direct carrier collaboration.”

About Nexagent Peering Points and the Network Service Grid
NPPs are located in two commercially independent and geographically separated co-location facility operators in each city to create a technically and commercially resilient interconnect point. NPPs combine independent service monitoring and reporting of carrier SLAs (Service Level Agreements), quality of service mediation and network incident management enabling carriers, integrators and Application Solution Providers to create end-to-end SLAs across multiple carriers. The combination of interconnected carriers, solution partners and Nexagent Peering Points is described as Nexagent’s ‘Network Service Grid’.

The City Lifeline NPP is the first in a series of Nexagent interconnection partner agreements that will go live in Europe, USA and Asia through 2004. This NPP forms one part of a London-to-Frankfurt roll-out which will inter-connect multiple carriers’ managed services to create a multi-carrier MPLS IP-VPN.

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About Nexagent
Nexagent’s On-Demand MPLS IP-VPN Interconnect Service enables rapid, cost effective delivery of seamless multi-carrier IP-VPNs with end-to-end quality of service. Nexagent’s Interconnect service is available today with Peering Points live and carriers connected across Europe. Based in Reading UK, the company has invested over 3 years and $50m in R&D, raised from leading Venture Capital firms, including APAX Partners, Atlas Venture and Benchmark Capital, who together manage over $5bn in funds. Nexagent’s leadership team brings over 150 man-years of experience from industry leading companies HP, Cisco, Citrix, IBM, C&W, Energis, Compaq and BT.

For more information on Nexagent visit www.nexagent.com

About City Lifeline
Established in 1994, City Lifeline has evolved to become one of London 's best-kept secrets. City Lifeline operate a substantial 24/7 communications centre, on the fringe of the City of London , offering a comprehensive range of bespoke collocation and communication solutions. From its origins as a business continuity and IT services company, City Lifeline has been flexible enough to stay ahead of the competition by continually responding to market changes and introducing a series of integrated telecoms products and services. Founded by directors with extensive experience of running data centres and IT operations for banks, City Lifeline is now increasingly recognised as the voice hub of Europe .

For more info visit www.citylifeline.com

Contacts

For Nexagent: Hilda Burke
Tel: + 44 (0) 207 349 2324
Email: hilda.burke@b1.com

For City Lifeline: Colin Berthelsen
Tel: +44 (0)20 7247 6066
Email : colinb@city-lifeline.co.uk

Rebecca Arnold ( Charlie Muirhead)
Email: cmuirhead@nexagent.com