Redback Networks Inc. has made a joint agreement with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), a research agency funded by government and private companies in Korea to advance information and communication technologies.

ETRI's technology will be integrated into certain Redback routing products. ETRI's technology will be used to extend Redback's core broadband technologies to meet the needs of communications carriers and government-run networks in Korea and Greater Asia. Future collaboration also is planned around mobility services. Mobility services are attractive to Redback because the addressable edge router market for mobility services is expected to exceed $1.2 billion worldwide by 2008, according to two market authorities, the Yankee Group and Infonetics Research.

"Redback has a solid history of collaboration and service innovation with Korean carriers, such as Korea Telecom (KT), and our equipment has been a critical component of the deployment of nationwide multi-service broadband networks," said Simon Williams, vice president of sales and operations for the Asia Pacific region at Redback Networks. "We believe that working with ETRI will help tailor our SmartEdge family of products to the Korean market and expand our broadband mobility opportunities in Korea."

ETRI has a long and distinguished track record of world-class engineering research and partnering with world-class technology companies. For example, ETRI co-developed CDMA cell-phone technology with Qualcomm, the U.S. chip maker, for advanced cell-phone chips and handsets used in Korea and greater Asia. The initial focus of the Redback-ETRI technology sharing agreement will be on the BSP-10. The BSP-10 is a version of the SmartEdge 100, introduced by Redback in 2006. The BSP-10 is manufactured and sold by Kisan Telecom of Korea, a deal Redback announced in October 2006. The BSP-10 will be optimized for the specific requirements of the Korean market.

Redback believes ETRI's software and hardware technologies will help drive additional opportunities in the carrier and government sectors in Korea. Redback plans to incorporate technology from ETRI to help accelerate deployment of integrated wired and wireless broadband infrastructures as well as advanced voice and video services. In Korea, Redback already helps deliver data, voice and video services to more than five million users of Korea Telecom and other carriers.

Twelve of the top 20 telephone carriers worldwide deploy Redback's SmartEdge family of multi-service edge routers to deliver multiple broadband services to tens of millions of business and residential customers worldwide. These customers include British Telecom, Belgacom, BellSouth, China Telecom, China Netcom, Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), eAccess (Japan), France Telecom, Korea Telecom and Turk Telecom, among others.