Business Description

We are a leading global provider of communications technology to service providers and enterprises. We provide a broad range of software and high-performance hardware products, network solutions, and services that enable the secure delivery of data and voice communications, and high-bandwidth networking and connectivity for residential consumers and for small, medium, and large enterprises and industry verticals such as finance, education, government, utilities, and transportation. Our mission is to create a recognized global technology leader that provides network solutions that are scalable, elastic and cloud-centric, enabling the secure exchange of information. We are at the intersection of the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) by Service Providers and Enterprises addressing the rapid growth in fiber connectivity and integration of voice capabilities into Agentic AI platforms We are headquartered in Plano, Texas, and have a global presence with research and development or sales and support locations in over 30 countries around the world. Company History The Ribbon name was created by the merger of Sonus Networks, Inc. and GENBAND US LLC (“GENBAND”) in October 2017, with both companies specializing in secure high-performance Voice Over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) technology and solutions. Prior to that, GENBAND acquired assets of Nortel’s Carrier division in 2010, which included a world-class engineering and sales team, a broad deployment base of products and technology, and a recognized industry reputation and pedigree with customers around the world. Since our formation in 2017, we have completed several acquisitions to strengthen and expand our portfolio of product offerings to service providers and enterprises. Recent notable acquisitions include: ● Edgewater Networks Inc. (August 2018): Expanded our portfolio of security and signaling solutions for the enterprise network edge. ● Anova Data, Inc. (February 2019): Expanded our portfolio with additional network optimization, security, and data monetization applications, enabled by an advanced Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning platform. ● ECI Telecom Group Ltd. (“ECI”) (March 2020) (the “ECI Acquisition”): Further expanded our focus and strategy to include optical transport and Internet Protocol (“IP”) networking, switching, and routing products and solutions, and helped us create an industry-leading communications software and networking company with a comprehensive portfolio of advanced voice, security, data and IP optical networking and transport solutions. Industry Background Today’s communications service providers (“CSPs”) and enterprises are investing in their networks to compete in an ever-changing technology and customer experience landscape driven largely by cloud computing, mobile workforces requiring hyper-connectivity, new high-performance applications and use cases, and an insatiable demand for bandwidth by end-customers and the applications they use. The exponential growth in traffic has largely been driven by video consumption, and over the next several years, new applications leveraging large language model (“LLM”) AI are expected to dramatically increase network bandwidth usage. As a result, service providers and enterprises must constantly seek out new technologies to refresh their networks and provide greater flexibility, automation, programmability, scalability, and reliability, enabling these new applications and services with expedited time-to-market. These investments provide a competitive advantage and deliver value-added services that improve network efficiency, increase customer satisfaction, and generate new revenue streams. Within this broad industry context, investment in our products and services is driven by several key industry trends and strategic priorities. Modernization of Communications Service Provider Networks to Reduce Total Cost of Ownership CSPs of all types operate in a hyper-competitive environment as consumers and businesses have an increasing number of choices for their communication needs. It is imperative that providers invest to capture new revenue streams while reducing network operating costs. Legacy services such as IP Multiprotocol Label Switching (“MPLS”) circuits, Centrex business 4 ​ services, and TDM phone lines are increasingly expensive to operate, and providers need to migrate customers to new offerings or risk high-margin revenue streams.…