William B. Bunting

Thomas Weisel Partners

One Montgomery Street

San Francisco, CA 94104

I address this letter to you in your position as a board member of Tellium, Inc. I write to you with all due respect and admiration but do so anonymously for fear of repercussions given what needs to be said. As an employee and shareholder of the company it is my hope that you and the board will take corrective action, swiftly and decisively.

In addition to yourself this letter is being forwarded to at least one other board member. As board members you are entitled, if not entrusted, to know what is really going on inside the company and what is in the hearts and minds of the spirited few who made the company what it is and could potentially be. This letter will provide some insights for you in this regard and hopefully stimulate a long over due corrective process.

The Executive team is not viewed as capable, trust worthy, or honest by the employees. They have been clearly running the company with aspirations of benefiting themselves not the employees or more importantly the shareholders. They have all but destroyed the engineering capabilities of the company in this last round of lay offs, which have yet to be explained to anyone’s satisfaction.

Tellium’s Executive team is one of the most incompetent groups of individuals ever assembled in a corporate leadership team. If Harry Carr put one full week’s worth of work in since last May that would be a lot, this alone is inexcusable for a CEO. He has surrounded himself with incompetence. Among them are people like Jack Kurtz who he shares a dark history with as reported by the press in the past with respect to Fantastic. Jack Kurtz has been off on special assignment along with Darren Beers and Nick DeVito collecting paychecks. Jack Kurtz is reportedly going to collect commission on the C&W order while contributing nothing to the company, this is completely irresponsible to the shareholders as well as to the employees. It’s especially irresponsible to those who were let go while these privileged few collect big paychecks for doing and contributing nothing.

Harry brought in Bill Proetta and James Manchester, neither of who ever successfully led a team, project or company. Every project the two were ever associated with was a failure, largely due to their preoccupation with themselves. Bill Proetta is arrogant, disrespectful, dishonest, and disingenuous to the employees. Grace Carr and her marketing empire wasted huge amounts of corporate funds. Hard to remember when the last time a press release putting the company in favorable light was issued.

John Gamelin and Krishna Bala, both smart people, who contributed to getting the company going in the early days don’t share an ounce of leadership between them and are way over their heads, they are completely laughable in their positions. Perhaps the most telling assessment of this team is Mike Losch a distant individual and a seemingly average CFO at best is probably the bright spot and that’s a very sorry statement.

It has been clear to the body of the company for quite some time now that the only interest of the executive team is the executive team. They don’t talk to the staff, except at Company meetings where no meaningful dialogues take place any more. Those executives that do show up for work don’t come back and talk to the engineers and the engineers have no respect for them. Since the last round of layoffs there is no leadership left and they have splintered up the remains of our engineering team to the point where everyone is demoralized and demotivated. What then do the executives care about, the answer is simple: their loans. It seems to be the guiding light for them, every decision and every move seems to be centered around their loans. It has been and continues to be a conflict of interest, what is good for their loans and what is good for the company is not the same. After this last round of layoffs the feeling is they want to make the company as dysfunctional as possible so that the board will agree to give up and sell off the assets and return the money. This way they will come out ahead. It is either through this scheme or a merger/acquisition that they will seek to come out ahead personally.

Tellium got to where it is on the backs of a very talented engineering team and through the leadership of a few individuals, namely John Marione, Lee Wilson, Ron Katz and Mike Becker. John Marione likely left due to the incompetence, dishonesty, and lack of leadership he was surrounded by in the executive team. Lee Wilson, Ron Katz, and Mike Becker were all released in the last round of layoffs, likely because they would challenge and push the executives to do what was right for the company. This was a body blow to the engineering team.

The company needs an executive team that is competent, comprised of leaders, who care about the future of the company, it’s employees and it’s shareholders not pre-occupied with their own misfortunes. You need to get rid of the current executive team and replace it with real leaders who can take us forward. The loans if they are to be forgiven should be just that and the options returned to the company. These people who have all but decimated the company should be let go, the loans called or written off with the stock option grants forfeit and a new leadership team installed.

Hopefully you will view this letter as a call to action to set Tellium on a course to move forward. We all hope to hear from the board soon. I encourage you to inquire with other employees and former employees to gain more insight and validate what was presented here. Please do take action, you are the last hope for the company, it’s employees and it’s shareholders.