Essex Corporation Digital 10 Gb/s Products Move to Production

Essex Corporation Digital 10 Gb/s Products Move to Production

September 25, 2006

    COLUMBIA, Md., Sept. 25 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Essex
Corporation (Nasdaq: KEYW) announced today its Commercial
Communication Products Division (CCPD) has production
versions of its two digital communication product families.
 The Essex Edge(TM) 10 Gb/s 300-pin MSA Extended Reach
Transponder family and the 10 Gb/s XFP MSA Transceiver
family are now available for quantity ordering.  Essex
Edge(TM) products are designed for specialized requirements
such as longer transmission distances and harsh
environmental conditions.  By meeting these more rigorous
requirements, Essex Edge(TM) products enable important cost
savings for the deployment and operation of commercial
telecommunications networks.

    The 300-pin MSA Extended Reach Transponder provides up
to 160 km (3200 ps/nm) of optical transmission distance
without inline optical compensation, eliminating the need
for service providers to deploy expensive regeneration
equipment and huts between central offices or
communications centers.  This enables direct upgrade of
some 2.5 Gb/s fiber optic links to 10 Gb/s fiber optic
links without expensive upgrade programs involving
extensive network redesign.  The 300 pin modules are widely
tunable for operation on either 50 GHz or 100 GHz ITU grid
spacings covering both C-Band and L-Band wavelengths.

    The XFP MSA Transceiver doubles the current widely
available 40 km reach capability to 80 km while being
compliant to SONET/SDH/OTN optical performance
requirements.  It can also be configured for extended
temperature operation at both 40 km and 80 km reaches,
which allows deployment of wideband XFP modules in
unsheltered locations to support the demands of the
expanding Fiber-to the-X (FTTX) market.  XFP modules are
available in Time-Division-Multiplexed (TDM) and
Wavelength-Division-Multiplexed (WDM) configurations.

    Both product families are currently undergoing standard
telecommunications industry environmental and reliability
qualification testing.

    "Essex-CCPD now has production versions of all
three of its initial products," commented Leonard
Moodispaw, CEO and President of Essex Corporation. 
"This is an important milestone for our investment in
these products and the product capabilities of this team. 
I believe that with these products we have the right
solution at the right time to meet the tougher performance
demands emerging from the telecommunications industry
worldwide.  Our objective with this team and their products
has always been to target the cutting-edge requirements of
the industry with innovative engineering and products.  We
are very pleased to share this milestone and these products
on the international stage at the European Conference on
Optical Communications (ECOC) this week."

    Essex CCPD sells fiber optic modules and subsystems for
advanced communications applications to both the commercial
and government markets.  Located in Melbourne, Florida,
Essex CCPD designs, manufactures, integrates, and tests
products that also include 40 km and 80 km standard and
extended temperature range XFP Transceivers, Duobinary
300-pin MSA Transponders, and Microwave Transceiver
Assemblies.  Datasheets for these products and sales
contact information can be found at
http://www.essexcorp.com/CCPD/index.html .  They will also
be highlighted in our booth (#692) at the European
Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) which is being
held in Cannes, France, September 25-27, 2006.

    About Essex

    Essex provides advanced signal, image, and information
processing, information assurance and cyber-security
solutions, primarily for U.S. Government intelligence and
defense customers, as well as for select commercial
customers.  We create our solutions by combining our
services and expertise with hardware, software, and
proprietary and patented technology to meet our customers'
requirements.  For more information contact Essex
Corporation, 6708 Alexander Bell Drive, Columbia MD
21046-2100; Phone [phone]; Fax [phone]; E-mail
[e-mail], or on the Web at
http://www.essexcorp.com .

    This press release may contain "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of the United States
Private Securities Reform Act of 1995.  These statements
are based on management's current expectations and are
subject to risks, uncertainty and changes in circumstances,
which may cause actual results, performance or achievements
to differ materially from anticipated results, performance
or achievements.  All statements contained herein that are
not clearly historical in nature are forward looking. 
Economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors
affecting Essex's businesses are examples of factors, among
others, that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those described in the forward-looking statements.  All
forward-looking statements are also expressly qualified in
their entirety by the cautionary statements included in
Essex's SEC filings, including its quarterly reports on
Form 10-Q and its annual report on Form 10-K.  Essex is
under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such
obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking
statements whether as a result of new information, future
events or otherwise.

    For more information, please contact:

     Leonard E. Moodispaw
     Chairman, CEO & President
     Tel:   [phone]

SOURCE  Essex Corporation