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CIENA ANNOUNCES NEXT-GENERATION CAPABILITIES FOR CORESTREAM INTELLIGENT OPTICAL TRANSPORT SYSTEM

CIENA's Unique Approach Offers A Single System For Next-Generation Capacity and Distance Requirements; CoreStream To Enable 3.2Tbps Capacity on Existing C-Band Infrastructure; Integrated FlexSpan Ultra Long-Haul Feature Now Being Deployed

Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), a global provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, today announced new capabilities for its MultiWave CoreStream™ optical transport system that are designed to address next-generation capacity and distance requirements in a single integrated system and to bring additional strategic and economic value to service provider networks. New capabilities include single-band 3.2 terabit-per-second (3.2Tbps) fiber capacity achieved through ultra-dense channel spacing, and the availability of CoreStream's FlexSpan™ feature set for ultra long-haul networking.

"Ciena's new CoreStream capabilities are at the leading edge of technology development in long-haul DWDM, specifically ultra high capacity (UHC) and ultra long-haul (ULH) transport. Significantly, Ciena is offering service providers bandwidth scalability while enabling them to control capital spending - an increasingly important value proposition in this market," said Sterling Perrin, senior research analyst, optical networks, at IDC. "Bringing innovations to market while at the same time remaining focused on practical network solutions is critical to the success of both service providers and vendors.

Next-Generation Capacity: Scaling Networks With Existing Infrastructure

Ciena's market-leading CoreStream platform will employ a two-phase approach to ultra-dense channel spacing to more than triple network capacity to 3.2Tbps, or 320 wavelengths at 10 gigabits per second (10Gbps), on an individual fiber and in a single transmission band. Phase one will enable 1.6Tbps through 25GHz channel spacing, and phase two will enable 3.2Tbps through 12.5GHz spacing.

Ciena is planning to demonstrate 12.5GHz channel spacing at SuperComm 2001 (June 5-7 in Atlanta) and plans to begin commercial shipments of ultra-dense features in the fourth calendar quarter.

Ciena believes that its advanced channel-spacing technologies will enable service providers to dramatically expand existing network capacity while optimizing existing C-band infrastructure. Unlike other high-channel transport strategies that require the use of additional channel bands (L-band or S-band), and consequently more optical amplifiers, to achieve 1.6Tbps of optical transport, CoreStream will offer service providers 3.2Tbps capacity without the incremental expense of using additional bands. With CoreStream, capacity upgrades beyond 80 channels should not affect amplifier sites between terminals, which allows for faster and more simplified economical capacity upgrades.

"Our philosophy is that a service provider shouldn't be forced to perform forklift upgrades to achieve fiber capacity at the 1.6 terabit - or even 3.2 terabit - level," said Steve Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Ciena. "While Ciena is prepared to address L-band and S-band solutions today, we believe that most service providers will choose those options only when the limits of physics prohibit us from adding more capacity within the existing C-band - a more economically sound way of scaling optical capacity."

When future network requirements grow beyond 3.2Tbps, Ciena anticipates employing the same ultra high-capacity technologies in the L-band and S-band to scale total fiber capacity to nearly 10Tbps.

Like previous generations of the CoreStream system, the next-generation CoreStream also is expected to accommodate incremental capacity upgrades while the network is in service, which should drastically reduce the likelihood of network interruptions and substantially limit manual provisioning costs.

Integrated FlexSpan Feature Addresses Multiple Distance Applications in a Single System

Ciena has designed its CoreStream optical transport platform to be flexible in meeting multiple distance requirements in a single integrated system. FlexSpan, CoreStream's integrated ultra long-haul feature set, now is being deployed in service provider networks. FlexSpan is a toolkit of advanced optical transport capabilities, including forward error correction (FEC), Raman pre-amplification and advanced amplifier options, designed to extend the reach of ultra-long network routes without electronic signal regeneration. CoreStream's FlexSpan features are designed to enable network spans ranging from several hundred kilometers to more than 2,000 kilometers on a single, flexible platform.

CoreStream, the only currently available intelligent optical transport platform to integrate long-haul and ultra long-haul networking capabilities in one system, will be able to use its flexibility and intelligence to simplify network design, deployment and operations, providing the economic advantages required for service providers to cost-effectively meet their traffic demands.

In the fourth calendar quarter of this year, Ciena also plans to introduce UltraFEC™, a new higher-gain forward error correction technology, to the FlexSpan feature set, which is expected to further improve span design distances.

By integrating these enhanced capabilities into the current CoreStream platform, Ciena believes that it will enable service providers to continue to improve cost efficiency by leveraging a single system and unified management software to address multiple distance applications.

"As customer demands on the intelligent optical network grow and evolve, Ciena's CoreStream will provide carriers with the essential network scalability and agility to deliver customized services at the lowest possible costs," said Ciena's Alexander. "By eliminating the need for our customers to spend valuable capital on additional equipment across long-haul and ultra long-haul routes, we are furnishing the means to more than triple their bandwidth, and double the length of their span designs, while optimizing network profitability."