Southern Cross, Vodafone New Zealand and Ciena collaborate to showcase advancements in uncompressed video transmission

Today, Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) and collaborating customers Southern Cross and Vodafone New Zealand showcased trans-Pacific uncompressed 4K encrypted video transmission at the GLIF (Global Lambda Interchange Facility) annual conference, hosted by REANNZ (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand Ltd). This demonstration highlights how the long–distance, high-performance networks operated by Southern Cross and Vodafone New Zealand can utilize Ciena’s Digital Video Transport and Assured Networking solutions to deliver high-capacity and secure services. During this demonstration, 4K images traverse a round-trip of approximately 30,000 kilometers with a total latency of less than one-quarter of a second, all with the encryption process occurring at line speeds without adding any noticeable delay. This important encryption capability can be used by broadcasters, healthcare institutions, governments and research organizations to secure the flow of data and protect content from theft.

Key Facts:

  • By using Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and the 565 Advanced Services Platform, a 4K video camera is sending an uncompressed and encrypted 4k video signal from Queenstown, New Zealand to the Southern Cross cable landing site near Los Angeles, Calif., through a trans-Pacific 12Tbps capable submarine system. The signal is then returned to New Zealand, where it is decrypted and displayed on high-resolution 4K televisions at the conference.
  • A key component of this demo is Ciena’s 565, a compact and cost-optimized metro WDM platform that enables a variety of data, storage and video services to be cost-efficiently aggregated onto an optical wavelength-based network or service. The 565 is highly suitable for remote National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) or regional R&E network services deployment.
  • Ciena’s 6500 provides the encryption and transport of the 4K video across the WaveLogic 3 based 100G link. The 6500 high-density, protocol-agnostic 10G wire-speed encryption solution provides increased protection of critical data via a FIPS 140-2 Level 3-compliant Advanced Encryption Standards (AES256) design, which includes physical tamper detection with zeroisation, among other advanced security features.
  • This high-performance connection being provided by Southern Cross, Vodafone New Zealand and Ciena is in place for the duration of the GLIF conference, which takes place September 29 - October 2 and is being utilized for a number of advanced research and computer communications experiments and demonstrations.

Executive Comments:

  • “These types of demonstrations are a snapshot of the future, not only showing what’s possible for New Zealand in using innovative technology, but its wider applications across remote medicine, clinical education and how a resort hotel can be a location for hi-level, hi-tech, real-time collaboration. This also shows that by working with industry leaders like Ciena, Southern Cross and Vodafone New Zealand, we can eliminate the obstacles that result from distance and allow innovators from around the world to work together.”-          Steve Cotter, CEO, REANNZ
  • “Earlier this year, Vodafone New Zealand and Ciena Corporation completed a successful field trial of 400Gb/s data transmission over an existing optical link carrying live network traffic.  Today, we’re part of a consortium demonstrating the practical use for such capacity – linking the USA to Queenstown at 100Gb/s.  We’re constantly looking to evolve our network to scale and meet the demands of not just today, but tomorrow and beyond.  It’s a further, exciting network milestone – and we’re delighted to have been involved.”
    - Tony Baird, technology director, Vodafone New Zealand
  • "As society continues on the path of transforming to a digital world, being able to transmit uncompressed video is only going to become more important and crucial to the operations of broadcasters, research institutions or even federal governments. Working with the GLIF community provides Ciena with the opportunity to advance this science of computer communications technology research, which is the life blood of our future. What’s more, being able to accomplish this in partnership with Vodafone New Zealand, Southern Cross and REANNZ makes this an important accomplishment with premiere collaborators.”
    - Rodney Wilson, senior director of external research, Ciena

Supporting Resources:

About Ciena
Ciena (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 Investors
Forward-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 September 9, 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.