Somera Communications Signs First Lifecycle Management Services Agreement in Asia Pacific Region

DALLAS, Aug. 4  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Somera Communications (NASDAQ:SMRA), a global provider of telecommunications asset management and recovery services, today announced the signing of a multi-million dollar Lifecycle Management Services agreement with S.A. Telecom System Ltd., a leading wireless carrier in Bangladesh.  This relationship represents Somera's first services agreement with a carrier in the Asia Pacific region.

S.A. Telecom is in the process of deploying a wireless network in the southeastern region of Bangladesh, and has engaged Somera to provide ancillary equipment and services to complement the primary CDMA equipment being furnished by a major telecom OEM.  Under this program, which is scheduled to be implemented over an 18-month timeframe, Somera will be responsible for the provisioning of equipment, installation, testing, site specifications, training, spares, and the overall successful operation of its portion of the network.

"We chose Somera to recommend CDMA infrastructure and also cost-effectively source, deploy and manage ancillary equipment for our network on a turnkey basis," said Md. Shahabuddin Alam, Managing Director of S.A. Telecom.  "Having expertise with end-to-end network equipment from over 350 telecom manufacturers and repair/spares capabilities for over 40,000 products from more than 50 manufacturers, Somera provided us with a vendor-agnostic opinion for sourcing the telecom infrastructure while ensuring industry-leading price-performance.  We are confident that leveraging Somera's capabilities will allow us to rapidly deploy, operate and maintain our network cost-effectively."

"We are very pleased to assist S.A. Telecom in the buildout of a wireless network that will cover a population of approximately 50 million subscribers," said David W. Heard, Somera's President and Chief Executive Officer.  "Our ability to provide turnkey auxiliary services and deliver meaningful cost savings by using a vendor-agnostic asset manager made us uniquely suited to win this project.  We are optimistic that we will demonstrate significant value to S.A. Telecom during the initial buildout phase and convert this relationship into a longer-term contract covering the ongoing management of their network assets.

"We continue to make steady progress in the ramp-up of our services business and add more annuity-based revenue to our business mix.  S.A. Telecom represents the first international carrier to engage our new services, and is a direct result of our efforts to increase our presence in key markets such as the Asia Pacific region.  In the past few months, we have added highly seasoned telecom veterans Sanjay Vidyarthi and Donald Brown to oversee our Asia Pacific operations, and their strong relationships in the region are helping to build a solid pipeline of new business opportunities for Somera," said Mr. Heard.

Sanjay Vidyarthi has been appointed Somera's Managing Director for the Asia Pacific region.  Mr. Vidyarthi has more than 18 years experience in telecommunications having worked in Asia, Europe and the United States.  He previously served as Chief Operating Officer for Tekelec's operations in India and held a number of senior marketing and technical positions at Lucent Technologies.

Donald Brown has been appointed Director of Business Operations for the Asia Pacific region.  Mr. Brown has more than 30 years of telecommunications experience including senior management positions in sales, marketing, implementation and customer support with AT&T/Lucent Technologies and most recently Tekelec.  The majority of Mr. Brown's experience has been in various positions in the Far East as part of AT&T/Lucent's highly successful globalization of its switching and wireless product lines.

About Somera

Somera launched its family of Lifecycle Management Services in 2004 in response to an industry-wide need for telecom asset management to optimize return on assets.  Somera's product offerings enable service providers to generate greater value from legacy assets in the form of lower operating costs, longer product life, higher productivity, and real measurable capital savings. With Somera LifecyclePLUS, customers can outsource elements of network operations, logistics, and technical service.  Somera RecoveryPLUS(TM) is a program approach to deliver documented savings and expense relief by recovering hidden value in current underutilized assets and inventories. Somera RepairPLUS provides comprehensive support for wireless, wireline, and data products at significant savings and reduced cycle times.  These services are in addition to Somera's traditional Brokerage business that provides immediate availability of quality, warranted new and refurbished equipment at savings of 25 to 60%. Founded in 1995, Somera has developed an impressive base of over 1,100 customers worldwide, including the industry leaders from each segment of the telecommunications market.  Visit Somera on the web at http://www.somera.com/.

This news release contains forward-looking statements as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including those regarding the terms and conditions of the contract with S.A. Telecom, the anticipated size of the contract, the satisfactory provision of services to S.A. Telecom, potential future revenue opportunities with S.A. Telecom, and our ability to capitalize on other new business opportunities in the Asia Pacific region.  Forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements contained in this release, including, but not limited to, general economic conditions particularly affecting the telecommunications industry; capital equipment spending levels in the telecommunications industry, including the risk of continued customer spending delays associated with carrier consolidation; the impact of competition in the market for supplying equipment and equipment lifecycle management services to telecommunications operators; the risk of potential shortage of product supply; and Somera's ability to build its lifecycle management services capabilities; and other factors fully described in the company's reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including but not limited to, the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December, 31, 2004, and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.  The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made by or on behalf of the company.  Copies of Somera's Securities & Exchange Commission filings may be obtained by contacting Financial Relations Board at 617-520-7064 or by visiting the Investor section of Somera's web site at http://www.somera.com/. 

DATASOURCE: Somera Communications



CONTACT:  Tony Rossi, Investor Relations, [phone],

, for Somera Communications



Web site:  http://www.somera.com/ 

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