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About Ciena

Ciena Corporation's market-leading optical networking systems form the core for the new era of networks and services worldwide. Ciena's LightWorks™ architecture enables next-generation optical services and changes the fundamental economics of service-provider networks by simplifying the network and reducing the cost to operate it. Additional information about Ciena can be found at http://www.ciena.com.

ABOUT INTEROUTE
Interoute (www.interoute.com) is a rapidly growing, vertically integrated, pan-European telecommunications company with established operations in 12 European countries and the USA. The company sells a range of telecommunications services, from network infrastructure, such as dark fibre and co-location, to end user services, such as telephony. Interoute is behind the largest telecommunications project in Europe today - the construction of the i-21 fibre optic network. Once completed, i-21 will be one of the fastest communications networks in Europe, with the capacity to carry over a petabit (a billion megabits per second) of traffic. Phase 1 of the network will connect 46 cities in 9 countries with around 14,500 route (18,000 cable) kilometres of fibre. The first of eight rings, connecting the UK, Holland and Belgium, is already operational, and all eight will be complete by the middle of 2001. Interoute is already a major presence in the wholesale voice market, selling to over 70 other carriers and service providers around the world. The company is expanding its portfolio to include managed bandwidth (lit fibre and SDH), Internet (transit and access), private networks (including IP VPN) and network resident applications (including web hosting and integrated voice services). Customers for these services include other carriers, network operators, Internet and application service providers, and e-commerce companies. Interoute also sells telephony services to residential and business customers across Europe, and is a leading provider of calling cards. In-country networks, and a pan European backbone connecting them to each other and to the wholesale hub in London, puts Interoute's telephony services within reach of over 310 million Europeans. Interoute is a privately held company owned by a number of internationally based shareholders, the largest and major shareholder being the Sandoz Family Foundation (www.sandozfondation.ch), one of the world's largest private family foundations.

Note to Investors
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions of the Company that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this release, including, but not limited to, the anticipated deployment of Ciena's equipment on Interoute's network, the ability of Interoute to optimize network capacity and speed while gaining even greater ability to offer next generation optical services at lower costs, and the cost savings, deployment timing and network management benefits of the Company's products, are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements, due to risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's business, which include the risk factors disclosed in the Company's Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 17, 2000. Forward looking statements include statements regarding the Company'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. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.