German cable operator increases capacity with Ciena’s 100G WaveLogic 3 and is equipped for customer growth

Unitymedia KabelBW is deploying Ciena’s (NYSE: CIEN) 100G coherent optical transport platform to upgrade its backbone network. This will allow Unitymedia KabelBW to reduce operating costs and latency and also increase its network elasticity. In addition, Ciena’s platform can be easily upgraded to 400G to support customer demand for new over-the-top (OTT) services such as video streaming.

Unitymedia KabelBW offers residential and business customers in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg TV, telephony and broadband Internet with up to 150 Mbit/s at present. “Demand among residential customers is growing for broadband-intensive entertainment services such as music and video streaming, downloading multimedia content or online video games,” explains Dr. Michael Langer, Director Network Engineering at Unitymedia KabelBW. “With Ciena’s platform we are tailoring our network to the needs of our customers. We have a flexible and scalable architecture, which we can adapt dynamically if customer requirements change.”

Future-proof network architectureUnitymedia KabelBW is deploying the 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, part of Ciena’s OPn network architecture. The platform, equipped with third generation WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors, leverages an agile ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer) optical layer, which enables fast and efficient 100G connections between central locations. It also allows Unitymedia KabelBW to offer Ethernet business, mobile backhaul and transport services for mobile operators. The packet network functions of Ciena’s 6500 are designed so that Unitymedia KabelBW can simply scale its packet services.

“It is important for cable operators such as Unitymedia KabelBW to extend their own infrastructure to meet growing demands. This is made possible by our converged Packet Optical Platform,” explains Eugen Gebhard, Regional Director, Germany & Pan-European Carrier Accounts at Ciena. “It also enables higher data speeds and new applications so that customer expectations can also be met in the future.”

Unitymedia KabelBW will also use Ciena’s management solution for simplified low-touch service activation, service visualization and network monitoring. This will enable Unitymedia KabelBW to simplify processes with seamless end-to-end service implementation and monitor all components and services from its central Network Operations Center. Unitymedia KabelBW will also use a number of services from Ciena’s Specialist Services Portfolio, such as installation, operation and testing.

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About Unitymedia KabelBWUnitymedia KabelBW headquartered in Cologne is the leading cable operator in Germany and a subsidiary of Liberty Global. Among the clients brands Unitymedia (North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse) and Kabel BW (Baden-Württemberg), the company reached 12.6 million households with broadband cable services. In addition to offering analog cable television services Unitymedia KabelBW is a leading provider of integrated triple-play services, which are responsible for the growth in the areas of digital cable television, broadband Internet and telephony.  As of December 31, 2013 Unitymedia KabelBW had 7.1 million customers, from which 6.6 million are TV subscriptions, 2.6 million Internet and 2.5 million telephony subscriptions (RGU). For more information on Unitymedia KabelBW see www.umkbw.de.

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.

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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 in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 7, 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.