January 8, 2002 -- Yipes Communications, Inc., a provider of instantly scalable Ethernet services, announced that its gigabit optical networks are delivering real-time market information to offices of Wolverine Trading, L.P. in Chicago and San Francisco, with plans to add locations in New York and Philadelphia. Wolverine also uses Yipes for high-speed Internet service and connectivity to its London office over a virtual private network (VPN).

Wolverine is one of the largest equity and equity options trading firms in the world. Based in Chicago, it has branch offices in London, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Wolverine trades only for its private partnership and has no outside capital or investors.

Replacing a network of T-1 lines, Wolverine now uses multi-megabit MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) services from Yipes to connect its headquarters to the Chicago Stock Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade and its clearing firm, First Options.

Wolverine has also connected its San Francisco office over a 3 Megabits-per-second Yipes NAN (National Area Network), a Layer 2 Ethernet service scalable (like other Yipes services) from 1 Mbps to 1000 Mbps in 1 Mbps increments. It has contracted for similar services to its New York and Philadelphia offices.

-End-