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CIENA STRENGTHENS EUROPEAN GROWTH WITH EXPANSION OF TÉLÉCOM DÉVELOPPEMENT RELATIONSHIP

Optical Networking Leader Wins Six-Way Competitive Pitch To Answer French Long-Distance Service Provider’s Core Switching Needs

Ciena Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), a global provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, today announced that Télécom Développement (TD), France’s second largest network operator, has selected CoreDirector™ as the primary optical switch for its network. TD held a comprehensive evaluation of six vendors’ products and determined that CoreDirector best met its specifications.

TD will deploy CoreDirector switches from Ciena to reduce its overall network operation costs and improve bandwidth utilization. This will give TD more flexibility within its network and allow new services such as ADSL and UMTS to be introduced faster.

Ciena has been working with TD for the last four years. Since 1998, Télécom Développement has grown exponentially, tripling its revenues and network traffic.

TD’s long-haul network spans more than 50 French cities and already uses Ciena’s optical transport system, CoreStream™, to increase network capacity. This latest agreement takes TD’s network one step further, by adding intelligent switching capabilities in Paris, with a further deployment scheduled for Lyon in 2003.

“There’s a lot of hype in the optical market, and you have to be careful that you invest in a product that is proven and not just blue-sky technology,” said Denis Manteau, vice-president of network and operations at Telecom Developpement. “We’re a fast-moving, dynamic business, focused on delivering innovative services to our customers in the quickest, most flexible way possible. Ciena’s combined technology leadership and the expertise of its team were significant contributing factors when it came to the decision on an optical switch.”

CoreDirector delivers a wide range of differentiable end-to-end optical capacity across the network and incorporates the distributed intelligence of Ciena’s software, which simplifies and enables automation as the network grows.

“It’s a great testament to Ciena that a company with Telecom Developpement’s reputation continues to expand its association with us,” said Rafael de Ory, managing director, EMEA for Ciena. “Building long-term relationships with our clients and developing networks to guarantee optimum utilization is what Ciena is all about.”