CIENA FIRST TO INTRODUCE 10G CAPABILITY FOR INTELLIGENT OPTICAL SWITCHING
10G Capability to be Demonstrated at Optical Fiber Communication Conference
Linthicum, MD — 03/06/2000Ciena Corporation (CIEN) today announced OC-192 (10Gbps) capability for its MultiWave CoreDirector™ intelligent optical core switch. Ciena plans to demonstrate the CoreDirector's OC-3, 12, 48 and 192 interfaces March 7-9 at the company's booth (#2813) at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) in Baltimore.
"Managing 10G optical bandwidth with SONET add/drop muxes or digital cross connects is either too expensive or just too difficult," said George Peabody, managing director of telecommunications research at Aberdeen Group. "The market for 10G has huge potential, but bandwidth management issues could slow it down. Being the first with a 10G interface on an intelligent optical core switch lets Ciena and its customers stay, literally, up to speed."
With 10G interfaces on the CoreDirector, Ciena extends its 10G capability beyond the company's MultiWave CoreStream™ intelligent optical transport systems.
"This capability gives the CoreDirector a range of optical interfaces from OC-3 to OC-192, thereby maximizing service flexibility and minimizing future equipment displacement for our customers," said Patrick Nettles, Ciena president and chief executive officer. "With this capability, CoreDirector enables true 10G services across the network."
CoreDirector's 10G interface is expected to be available in the third calendar quarter of 2000.
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.
Forward-looking statements in this release, including, but not limited to, the capacity, cost, deployment 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 February 17, 2000.
Nicole Anderson
Ciena Corporation
(877) 857 -7377
pr@ciena.com
Marie Downing
Ciena Corporation
(888) 243-6223
ir@ciena.com
