Ciena and EIG ensure flexible, secure and reliable capacity across 12 countries on three continents

With demand for increased data services between Europe and Asia expected to grow at an average of 38 percent per year in the next six years1, the Europe India Gateway (EIG) consortium is multiplying the capacity on its international submarine cable system. Ciena® (NYSE: CIEN), is providing EIG an end-to-end multi-Terabit upgrade that will enable a flexible supply of network capacity. Ciena’s intelligent control plane and switching technologies will also ensure that the EIG network is equipped with the programmability to scale on-demand in the future.  As the first direct, high-bandwidth optical fiber submarine cable system from the United Kingdom to India, the EIG upgrade, with OTN and Mesh capabilities, ensures service reliability and enables transparent, data friendly services to support the growing demand for Internet connectivity and bandwidth-intensive applications such as e-commerce, data, video and voice services.

Key Facts:

  • The Europe India Gateway (EIG) cable system, spanning approximately 15,000 kilometers, connects 12 countries across three continents, enhancing capacity and providing much needed diversity for broadband traffic connecting Western Europe with the Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa and India. Given the strategic importance of this network corridor this network upgrade allows EIG’s consortium members to satisfy their immediate needs for redundancy and resiliency in their network architectures. The first phase of the EIG cable upgrade - from the United Kingdom to Djibouti - is complete, with phase two - enhancing the cable capability to India - underway.
  • Ciena’s GeoMesh submarine solution, using the OneControl Unified Management System, combined with the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and optical bypass, gives EIG an end-to-end view of both its terrestrial and submarine networks. The 100G wavelengths installed for EIG will be able to seamlessly offer 10G and 100G services.
  • EIG’s flexible network architecture, an example of Ciena’s OPn network architecture that enables programmable and scalable network designs, also benefits from Ciena’s 5400 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switching System, which switches and protects both SDH and OTN traffic to key points in EIG’s network.
  • Ciena’s OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane with mesh restoration automates provisioning across EIG’s entire terrestrial and subsea network, ensuring optimized traffic routing, and enhanced network resiliency and availability – allowing the submarine cable to meet the unique needs of sixteen consortium members with added speed and simplicity.
  • This is a turn-key end-to-end upgrade supported by Ciena’s Specialist Services team, which provides project management, integration, as well as test and turn-up assistance.

Executive Comments:

  • “This single coherent solution provided by Ciena enables us to meet customer demand for more capacity with scalability, reach and resiliency.”
    - John Russell, Management Committee Chairman, Europe India Gateway
  • “This win further expands our footprint in the submarine market and cements our role as a strategic supplier to top international cable consortia. High-bandwidth, on-demand applications and services continue to put pressure on today’s submarine networks, requiring providers like EIG to leverage platforms that not only increase capacity but also provide more programmability and enhanced network management capabilities.”
    - Ed McCormack, Vice President and General Manager of Submarine Systems, Ciena

Supporting Resources:

Notes1 TeleGeography (Global Bandwidth Forecast Service, Q1 2014)

About EIGThe EIG cable system is a 15,000 kilometer international fibre optic submarine cable system that links the United Kingdom, with Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India. EIG is the first high bandwidth (3.84 terabits per second) cable system using dense wavelength division multiplexing technology connecting the United Kingdom with India via the Mediterranean Sea.

About CienaCiena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPn architecture for next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena InvestorsForward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 11, 2014. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena'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. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.