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Sigma Networks Introduces New Hubbed SONET Services Powered by CIENA CoreDirector

Sigma Networks First to Deploy CIENA CoreDirector in the Core of a Metro Network

Ciena Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), a global provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, and Sigma NetworksSM, provider of the most complete range of metro interconnect services, today announced Sigma Networks' deployment of Ciena's intelligent optical core switching solutions to enable Sigma Networks' innovative hubbed MAINLinkSM SONET Services, which deliver unsurpassed flexibility with full carrier-class SONET performance and availability. Sigma Networks is the first service provider to deploy Ciena's intelligent optical core switching solutions in the metro core.

Ciena's Multiwave CoreDirectorTM and Multiwave CoreDirector CITM intelligent optical core switches enable Sigma Networks to deliver a uniquely flexible and cost effective offering of switched, channelized SONET Services in a metro network. Its fractional SONET capabilities allow Sigma Networks' carrier and service provider customers to use a single aggregated port connection to reach multiple points-of-presence in major cities. Sigma Networks' flexible hubbed SONET Services are delivered with unprecedented rapid provisioning, empowering customers with just-in-time capacity management and true carrier-class SONET performance and availability. Ciena's CoreDirector enables Sigma Networks' switching at the STS-1 level for the distribution of DS3s, OC-3s, OC-12s, and OC-48s throughout the metro.

Sigma Networks hubbed SONET Services allow customers to greatly reduce costs via economies of scale. For example, rather than ordering four separate OC-3 metro point-to-point connections, a customer could realize approximately $47,000 savings per year with the hubbed SONET Services by provisioning one aggregated OC-12 port with channelized, switched delivery to four different OC-3s at four different end locations. The services allow carriers and service providers to easily groom and aggregate existing circuits to meet current and future needs.

Ciena's CoreDirector, an intelligent optical switch utilized in the core of both long-haul and metropolitan networks, is designed to rapidly deliver a wide range of differentiable end-to-end optical capacity while minimizing capital and operational expenses. It enables the ability to groom circuits, thereby offering carriers the flexible capacity that today's networks require. The CoreDirector CI is a smaller footprint version of CoreDirector that complements the larger switch and is optimized for high-capacity optical switching in smaller hub sites, predominant in the regional and metro portions of service provider backbone networks.

"Ciena enables Sigma Networks to offer customers groundbreaking switched, fractional metro SONET Services," said John Peters, CEO of Sigma Networks. "Carriers and service providers have been seeking rapidly provisioned, streamlined fractional SONET Services for years, and Sigma Networks is architected to provide fast and flexible service to meet this market need. With switching at the STS-1 level, customers can be sure that they will receive the right amount of bandwidth at the right place at the right time."

"Ciena's software-based, next-generation intelligent optical switching technologies help Sigma Networks redefine the industry's expectations for metro area interconnect services," said Gary Smith, president and CEO of Ciena. "By making use of Ciena CoreDirector's intelligent bandwidth capabilities, Sigma Networks is able to rapidly provision services and make it easy for its carriers and service provider customers to efficiently expand their metro reach through their streamlined hubbed SONET Services."