PacketExchange Acquires Mzima's Network Assets as the Companies Merge Their Operations

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - January 18, 2010) - PacketExchange, the next generation network service provider with coverage in Europe, the United States and Asia, today announces it will acquire Mzima Networks, a premier high-performance network service provider, and will merge both companies' customer base and operations. The combined entity will offer a new, global, next-generation IP and WAN network and services with over 500 customers and hundreds of points of presence in over 100 countries worldwide.

PacketExchange, a London-based company, has an extensive global network footprint that leverages its 10 Gigabit backbone to provide global Ethernet private line services, MPLS and VPLS networking and peering services. Mzima owns and manages a private, optical long-haul network serving as the foundation for an Ethernet-over-PBB-TE mesh architecture and its highly resilient optical IP transit network. The combined company now offers hundreds of network points of presence and peering partners to over 100 countries globally.

"With the fast pace of market evolution towards global Ethernet utilization and Cloud Connectivity, we aim to be at the forefront of service delivery for these new network architectures," states Rick Mace, Chief Executive Officer of PacketExchange. "This combined entity catapults us into a leadership position, offering our customers and strategic peering partners expanded network reach across one of the most advanced high performance networks in the world. The company also offers access to superior customer service due to our globally diversified technical and support teams joining forces. We see this acquisition as the first part of a larger strategy to further create a networking powerhouse to deliver the service and networking needs of global corporations. Mzima's deal is the first step in a series of strategic transactions to strengthen our position within the enterprise market. This deal was managed by Redwood Capital, a leading investment bank that is retained by PacketExchange to continue to assist in strategic M&A activity moving forward."

Grant Kirkwood, a ten-year veteran in IP communications and CTO of Mzima Networks, will serve as Chief Technology Officer for the newly merged company. He will oversee the complete integration of each company's network, creating a ubiquitous and seamless global architecture to support clients' needs and to position PacketExchange for further growth.

"There are tremendous synergies between the two companies, including our complimentary network footprints and IP service offerings," states Mr. Kirkwood. "The newly combined company is optimized to offer its state-of-the-art architecture for next generation services and global innovation specifically served through our content delivery network, IP transit, global Ethernet transport services and global peering capabilities -- the core of our network strength."

Today's bandwidth intensive clients can experience high levels of performance, increased reliability, and lower latency with Mzima and PacketExchange's combined global, next generation network and service offerings. PacketExchange's Ethernet Private Line service, DireXion, offers secure layer 2 private networking across a meshed Ethernet over MPLS infrastructure making it easy for customers to connect sites and share information globally. With Mzima's high performance international IP backbone optimized for 100% uptime, the combined network architectures truly make PacketExchange a leader in next generation network services.

For more information about PacketExchange and Mzima Networks, please visit www.packetexchange.net and www.mzima.net.

About PacketExchange

PacketExchange is the leading provider of private network services with Internet economics -- providing Global Ethernet, Global Peering, Content Delivery, Application Delivery, Dedicated Internet Access and Internet Transit. Our unique real-time transactional services platform leverages a global private layer-2 MPLS/VPLS network to offer a fast, secure, reliable and cost-effective alternative to the public Internet backbone. PacketExchange's redundant mesh across Europe, USA and Asia and exclusive wide-area peering fabric enable hundreds of access and broadband service providers, digital media, content and web application providers, enterprises and customers to connect directly to their trading partners around the world. PacketExchange is a privately held company headquartered in London, UK with network facilities in Amsterdam, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Dublin, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Manchester, Miami, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Secaucus NJ, Singapore and Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.packetexchange.net.

About Mzima Networks

Founded in 2002, Mzima Networks is the world's premier high-performance network service provider delivering Internet bandwidth to enterprise, content providers and carriers globally. Mzima's all-optical, meshed backbone network is engineered to provide the highest levels of performance, reliability and value. By leveraging its partnership with Force10, Mzima is the leader in native 10 Gigabit Ethernet technologies. Coupled with its extensive private peering with numerous broadband ISPs and content providers, Mzima Networks offers its customers the fastest, most reliable connectivity currently available. For more information, please visit www.mzima.net.

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