Notas de Imprensa

Sovintel To Deploy Alvarion Cellular Feeding System For “Bee-Line” – One of Russia’s Largest GSM Mobile Operators

Sale Expands Alvarion’s Already Strong Positioning In Russia
 
 Tel – Aviv, Israel, August 27, 2003 – Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR), a leading provider of Broadband Wireless solutions, today announced that EDN Sovintel, Russia’s leading alternative telecommunications service provider, has begun to deploy an Alvarion WALKair™ Broadband Wireless Point-to-Multipoint cellular feeding solution in St. Petersburg for Bee-Line (Vimpelcom), one of Russia’s leading GSM mobile operator.

EDN Sovintel is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Telecom, Inc. (Nasdaq: GLDN) that provides advanced voice, fax, data, video and Internet access services under the Golden Telecom brand name to commercial and residential customers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Founded in 1990, Sovintel launched operations over an independent fiber-optical digital backbone SDH network. In 2000, Sovintel was awarded a number of wireless frequency licenses, including a 10.5 GHz license in the St. Petersburg region and a 3.5 GHz license in Moscow. At that time, it deployed WALKair™ Broadband Wireless backbone networks on these frequency bands to bring a broad range of broadband access services to areas with inadequate wire line infrastructure.

To further leverage its frequency investments, Sovintel is now installing a WALKair™ cellular feeding solution as the basis for the provision of exceptionally high-capacity backhaul services. Bee-Line will use these services as a cost-effective alternative to point-to-point and leased line solutions in the St. Petersburg region, where its subscriber base numbers approximately 2.2 million.

Commenting on the news, A.Tseytlin, Technical Director of Sovintel, said, “Over the past two years, we have come to rely on WALKair™ as an effective way to quickly deliver capacity to our customers where fiber infrastructure is not readily available. It has proven a reliable and efficient way to do so and thereby compliments very well Sovintel’s optical network”.

Tzvika Friedman, President and COO of Alvarion, said, “We are proud that our technology has played a part in Sovintel’s impressive growth, and that it is helping them co-operate with this major cellular operator. Wireless communications are playing an important role in the rapid evolution of the Russian telecommunications market, making it a significant focus of business activity for Alvarion. We are dedicated to providing the full range of flexible wireless solutions that Russian operators need to provide profitable voice, data, access, and backbone services over all available wireless frequencies.”

About Sovintel

EDN Sovintel provides advanced voice, fax, data, video and Internet access services under the Golden Telecom brand name to commercial and residential customers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Founded in 1990 as a Soviet-American joint venture, Sovintel operates an independent fiber-optical digital backbone SDH network, and is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Telecom, Inc. (Nasdaq: GLDN).  Sovintel’s dedication to the highest level of service quality and customer responsiveness has been proven through its continuous investment in state-of-the-art technological solutions.

For more information, visit Golden Telecom's World Wide Web site at http://www.goldentelecom.ru/

About Bee Line (VimpelCom)

VimpelCom is one of Russia’s leading providers of wireless telecommunications services. The company operates under the “Bee Line” family of brand names, which are among the most recognized in Russia. The VimpelCom Group's license portfolio covers approximately 94% of Russia's population (137 million people) and serves a total of approximately 6.2 million subscribers, with approximately 3.9 million subscribers in the Moscow license area and 2.2 million in St. Petersburg and regions outside Moscow. The first Russian company to list its securities on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), VimpelCom's ADSs are listed under the symbol "VIP".

About Alvarion

Alvarion is dedicated to delivering seamless wireless broadband networking infrastructure to carriers, ISPs and private network operators, in order to leverage their broadband opportunities into sustainable profits. Alvarion offers premier wireless broadband solutions for access in the last mile, backhauling connection to the backbone and private network connectivity. Featuring the industry's most extensive range of products and international support, Alvarion is a pioneering leader of the converged wireless broadband network. With over 1.5 million units deployed in 120 countries worldwide, Alvarion provides secure rich-media networks for business or residential Internet access, corporate VPNs, cellular base station feeding, community interconnection, public safety connectivity and extended Hotspots.

Having recently acquired InnoWave's wideband access portfolio and expertise, Alvarion provides a complete wireless solution that supports a wide range of frequency bands, customer profiles and service types.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the current expectations or beliefs of Alvarion’s management and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: inability to further identify, develop and achieve success for new products, services and technologies; increased competition and its effect on pricing, spending, third-party relationships and revenues; as well as the inability to establish and maintain relationships with commerce, advertising, marketing, and technology providers and other risks detailed from time to time in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Information set forth in this press release pertaining to third parties has not been independently verified by Alvarion and is based solely on publicly available information or on information provided to Alvarion by such third parties for inclusion in this press release.  The web-sites appearing in this press release are not and will not be included or incorporated by reference in any filing made by Alvarion with the Securities and Exchange Commission which this press release will be a part of.

You may request Alvarion's future press releases or a complete Investor Kit by contacting Carmen Deville, Investor Relations: carmen.deville@alvarion.com or 760-517-3188.

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