Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN), the network specialist, today announced that Star Telephone, a leading independent operating company (IOC) based in southeastern North Carolina, has selected the CN 4200™ FlexSelect™ Advanced Services Platform for its core network infrastructure upgrade. Star is transitioning its legacy SONET network to a next-generation, service-enabled architecture to better support the delivery of high-bandwidth services including metro Ethernet, wireless, high-speed data and IPTV.
Star Telephone provides a variety of advanced telecommunications services to more than 19,000 business and residential customers throughout five counties in southeastern North Carolina. Experiencing bandwidth limitations in its existing OC-48 SONET network, Star needed a solution that could help it meet growing customer demand for a variety of high-bandwidth services and provide the flexibility to provision new services quickly and efficiently without interruption. Instead of installing new fiber in the ground or building a larger fiber ring, Star chose Ciena’s CN 4200 platform to facilitate a practical convergence strategy and achieve a cost-optimized network architecture.
“As we move to IPTV to better meet customer demand for new entertainment choices, we realize the importance of moving to a more robust and scalable network architecture,” said Lyman Horne, executive vice president and general manager of Star Telephone. “By converging multiple services onto a single platform, Ciena’s CN 4200 and FlexSelect Architecture not only allow us to offer more value to our customers, but do so in a way that protects our existing network investment while establishing a flexible path for future growth.”
Supporting the ITU’s G.709 Optical Transport Network (OTN) standard, Ciena’s CN 4200 enables Star to overlay its SONET ring with a Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) system on existing lit fiber to carry two GbE circuits over the ring—with the capability to grow to 16 GbE circuits—to deliver more services faster. Star can now deliver multiple signals over each fiber run, giving the provider sufficient bandwidth to support bundles of services that are more attractive to its customers. Using the CN 4200’s FlexiPort technology, which allows optical ports to be remotely reprogrammed and reconfigured to different service types, Star can migrate its business customers from TDM leased lines to more packet-friendly services such as Ethernet and Fibre Channel for LAN and storage extension applications, as well as upgrading its own inter-office network.
“This deployment further illustrates the growing need among telecommunications providers to deliver advanced service bundles to their customers,” said Mike Aquino, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Ciena. “As IOCs are continually challenged to respond to this demand with limited fiber resources, it is essential they choose a practical migration strategy that can expedite the process and generate a competitive edge. The CN 4200’s multiple benefits – including the ability to add capacity to existing fiber while providing programmable service flexibility to meet demands today or in the future – make it the ideal solution to help customers like Star Telephone achieve converged, cost-optimized network architecture.”
In addition, Ciena's Global Network Services (GNS) organization delivered mission-critical deployment services for Star Telephone. During the upgrade, Ciena's GNS deployment experts seamlessly integrated the CN 4200 into Star's network and performed a live traffic cut onto the new platform without interrupting service to the carrier or its customers.
About Ciena’s CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform
Ciena's CN 4200, the flagship product of its FlexSelect Architecture and a key element of its FlexSelect for Ethernet solution, is the first multiservice transport and service aggregation platform capable of supporting the migration to packet networks using future-ready technology such as OTN, dynamic wavelength routing featuring a hybrid ROADM solution, and remote service provisioning and management capabilities. Using software-defined service ports, it is capable of on-demand support for any transport or service protocol—including SONET/SDH, Ethernet, storage (Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON) or video—at any speed on any available port.
ABOUT CIENA
Ciena Corporation is the network specialist, focused on expanding the possibilities for its customers’ networks while reducing their cost of ownership. The company’s systems, software and services target and cure specific network pain points so that telcos, cable operators, governments and enterprises can best exploit the new applications that are driving their businesses forward. For more information, visit www.ciena.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 2, 2007. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
