SONUS NETWORKS EXPANDS EMEA OPERATIONS

Sonus Opens Regional Offices in France and Germany to Cover Southern and Central Europe

WESTFORD, Mass., October 17, 2000 – Sonus Networks (Nasdaq: SONS), a leading provider of voice infrastructure solutions for the new public network, today announced it has continued its expansion across Europe with the opening of regional offices in France and Germany.  The new offices, located in Paris, France and Florsheim, Germany, will serve carriers in southern and central European countries.  The company also announced that it has appointed Thierry Genoun as Sonus’ regional sales director for southern Europe and Uwe B??sing as regional sales director for central Europe.

Sonus’ new regional capabilities complement its EMEA headquarters operations, which are located in Swindon, UK.  Sonus launched its EMEA operations in March 2000 to serve the rapidly growing EMEA service provider market, including next-generation carriers as well as established service providers throughout Europe.  Sonus’ continued EMEA expansion will also enable the company to support its current customers, such as Global Crossing, as they build global, next-generation voice infrastructures.   

“The launch of Sonus’ new offices in France and Germany is central to our strategy of gaining market share in Europe,” commented Gary Rogers, Sonus’ vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.  “Our new operations will enable us to work even more closely with European carrier customers as they plan, and begin to deploy, their next-generation voice networks.”

Joining Sonus to manage the new regional operations are telecom industry veterans Thierry Genoun and Uwe B??sing.  In their new positions, both Genoun and B??sing will be responsible for the sales, support and marketing of Sonus’ voice infrastructure solutions.  Prior to joining Sonus, Genoun had held sales management positions with Lucent, Ascend Communications, Timeplex and Nortel.  Before Sonus, B??sing held sales management roles at Alcatel, Packet Engines and Bay Networks.   

About Sonus Networks

Sonus Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of voice infrastructure products for the new public network.  Sonus’ solutions enable service providers to deploy an integrated network capable of carrying both voice and data traffic, and to deliver a range of innovative, new services.  The Sonus Open Services Architecture^TM (OSA) and award-winning Packet Telephony suite cut the time-to-market for competitive new service products, allowing carriers and third-party developers to expand marketshare and build important new revenue streams.  Its highly scalable products fully interoperate with and extend the life and utility of today’s public network.  Sonus embodies in its management and staff decades of experience in developing carrier-class voice, data and multimedia solutions for implementation in the world’s largest networks.  Sonus, founded in 1997, is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts.  Additional information on Sonus is available at http://www.sonusnet.com.

This release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of Sonus that involve risks and uncertainties.  Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results.  Readers are referred to Sonus’ Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2000, filed with the SEC, which identifies important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements.  These risk factors include, among others, the Company’s ability to grow its customer base, dependence on new product offerings, market acceptance of our products, rapid technological and market change and manufacturing and sourcing risks.

Open Services Architecture is a trademark of Sonus Networks.  All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.