Press Release: March 23, 2000

WR Hambrecht + Co Initiates Coverage of Tellabs, Inc. (TLAB) with a Market Neutral Rating

Promising new product initiatives have yet to take hold

San Francisco, CA, March 23, 2000—WR Hambrecht + Co today initiated research coverage on Tellabs, Inc. (TLAB) with a market neutral rating. WR Hambrecht + Co’s eNetwork Infrastructure analyst Tim Savageaux believes Tellabs will benefit from sector growth but faces challenges stemming from technology transitions in its core markets. WR Hambrecht + Co offers all its research reports free and real-time at www.wrhambrecht.com.

"We believe Tellabs is a well-established global supplier of major communications systems platforms, principally the Titan 5500 digital cross connect, to communications service providers. The Company’s challenge is to migrate its current platform and to develop or acquire new platforms that facilitate the evolution of carrier networks from circuit to packet orientation and to scale to meeting increasing bandwidth demands," Savageaux said.

Savageaux project Tellabs’ total revenues could reach $3.1 billion in 2000 and $3.8 billion in 2001, up from the 1999 total of $2.3 billion.

Tellabs is a major supplier of communications infrastructure to the world’s largest communications carriers in the U.S. and around the world.