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Brian Lavallée

Senior Director of Portfolio Marketing with global responsibility for Ciena’s 5G, Packet, and Submarine networking solutions.

Brian Lavallée

Senior Director of Portfolio Marketing with global responsibility for Ciena’s 5G, Packet, and Submarine networking solutions.

Brian Lavallée is the Senior Director of Portfolio Marketing with global responsibility for Ciena’s 5G, Packet, and Submarine networking solutions. Brian has over 20 years of telecommunications experience with past roles in Product Line Management, Systems Engineering, Research & Development, and Manufacturing. During his career, he has worked in various areas of optical networking including access, metro, regional, long-haul, and submarine networks. He holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from Concordia University and an MBA in Marketing from McGill University, both located in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Insights from Brian Lavallée

Rise of the connected machines, and the options for connecting them

The Internet of Things is coming, and there is a litany of ways they can be connected to the network. Ciena's Brian Lavallée details the options, and where 5G fits among the choices for IoT connectivity.

To fiber or not to fiber, that is the question

Fiber is the workhorse of today's global network infrastructure. But what do you do when fiber is just not an option? Ciena's Brian Lavallée details the real-world situations that often dictate the choice between fiber and wireless links for uses

All dressed up, and nowhere to go

With the world's data centers increasingly connected across continents, there's now a critical symbiotic relationship between submarine and terrestrial network operators. Ciena's Brian Lavallée details how Colt and Tata Communications are working

Telecommunications in the Harshest Environment on Earth

Ciena’s submarine expert Brian Lavallée explains how submarine cables, so critical to our everyday communications, are protected and how the ICPC helps.

5 key wireline network improvements needed for 5G

Contrary to popular belief, 5G isn’t just about the Radio Access Network (RAN) and fancy new smartphones. The next generation of mobile networks will need a lot of help from wireline technologies to deliver on its noteworthy promises. ...

From Land to Sea to Cloud

It’s projected that Internet Content Providers will soon account for the majority of submarine traffic in all regions of the world. Ciena’s Brian Lavallée explains how this growth is driving the need more network capacity to interconnect

Debunking 5 common myths about 5G

When the industry talks about 5G, there is a level of excitement and optimism about what it will enable. With this hype, however, comes confusion around what is reality, and what is quite frankly a myth. Ciena’s Brian Lavallée looks at five of

Very Hot! Muito Quente! Muy Caliente!

With tens of thousands of new kilometers and over a billion dollars of capital investment planned in new submarine cables – the LATAM market sure is hot. As we get ready for the Capacity LATAM event in Rio de Janeiro, Ciena’s Brian Lavallée details

ENCQOR! ENCQOR!

An exciting initiative was launched today that will lay the groundwork for the first 5G next generation network collaboration platform in Canada that will advance 5G networks around the world, and we’re a part of it.

5G. More than just a wireless upgrade.

5G is the hottest topic in the wireless industry these days, but as Ciena’s Brian Lavallee explains, it means a massive upgrade to wireline network infrastructure as well. That’s why today

Welcome to Ciena 5G Boot Camp

The path to 5G can be a long, costly, and complex journey fraught with risk, challenges, and of course, significant opportunities and benefits. Enter Ciena 5G Boot Camp.

Virtualize Your Submarine Cable

Ongoing growth in subsea bandwidth demand has the industry looking for new technologies that can further expand submarine cable capacity. Ciena's Brian Lavallee details how L-band spectrum and spectrum sharing could provide an answer.

Q&A with EXFO: Understanding Submarine OSNR

In advance of PTC’18, Ciena’s Brian Lavallée sat down with Jean-Sébastien Tassé of EXFO to discuss the importance and intricacies of properly measuring OSNR across submarine cable networks.

Retail Digitization… Friend or Foe?

The online world is acting as a disruptor to the retail industry. But the same tools that allow consumers to become increasingly informed -- networks and data analytics -- can also be leveraged by retailers to gain competitive advantage. Ciena's

Back to the Future(com)

The tech and telecom industry descends on São Paulo, Brazil, this week for Futurecom 2017. Ciena's Brian Lavallée details the latest in the Latin American market and the submarine cable networks that increasingly connect the region.

Shannon’s Limit, or Opportunity?

There’s a looming limit to how many bits can be crammed into an optical fiber, known as the Shannon Limit. Ciena's Brian Lavallée details what it means and how the industry is finding creating solutions.

Contrary to popular belief, satellites account for a miniscule part of keeping the world connected. Submarine networks do the heavy lifting—all from the depths of the ocean floors.

The 5G Smart City: Cities are Lining up for a Slice

Smart Cities are coming, and 5G network slicing technology will enable them, with its ability to enable the critical services that smart cities will deploy. Ciena's Brian Lavallee explains.

Autonomous Networks… Are You Ready?

Who better to tell you about your network health than your network itself? Ciena's Brian Lavallée explains where we are (and where we're going) on the road to autonomous networks. This article was first published...

Multi-Terabit Submarine Cables… Too Big to Fail?

Back in 2010, the Reliability of Global Undersea Cable Communications Infrastructure (ROGUCCI) report found that nearly 100 percent of the world’s intercontinental

The Story Behind the First Reliable Trans-Atlantic Submarine Cable Laid 150 Years Ago

While today's subsea cable networks are experiencing a technological revolution, they’re not a new phenomenon by any means. In fact, this week is the 150-year anniversary of the first reliable trans-Atlantic telegraph cable

GeoMesh Extreme:
Release the Kraken!

Ciena’s Brian Lavallée delves into the depths of submarine networks and their importance to global communications, and how Ciena’s new GeoMesh Extreme allows submarine cable operators to integrate several technology advancements to enable an open

Northern Europe Goes Dark, and It’s a Good Thing

Eastern Light is a Swedish-based company that aims to change how bandwidth is carried around Northern Europe, a hotbed of data center activity, by offering long-haul international dark fiber networks.

Q&A with Sven Freudenfeld of Lanner: Ciena’s newest Blue Orbit Ecosystem Partner

Ciena’s Brian Lavallée talks with Sven Freudenfeld of Lanner, Ciena’s newest Blue Orbit partner, about the company and the evolution of the NFV market space.

Celebrating 60 Years of Protecting Submarine Cables

The International Cable Protection Committee plays a critical role in protecting the world's subsea cable networks, and it's about to celebrate 60 years, says Ciena's Brian Lavallée.

Packet Cable Landing Stations… Why Not?

The International Cable Protection Committee plays a critical role in protecting the world's subsea cable networks, and it's about to celebrate 60 years, says Ciena's Brian Lavallée.

8 Incredible Facts You Didn’t Know About Submarine Networking

Ciena's subsea expert Brian Lavallée tests your knowledge of the world of submarine cable networks with this list of facts and figures.

Submarine Cable Networks, Open for Business

Open Cables, APIs, and big data analytics have and will continue to change everything going forward, says Ciena's Brian Lavallee, including with submarine networks.

Protecting $10 Trillion Worth of Transactions, Every Day

Back in 2010, under the auspices of the IEEE, the Reliability of Global Undersea Cable Communications Infrastructure (ROGUCCI) report was issued. It was an in-depth study

What is Distributed NFV and why do you need it?

Ciena's Brian Lavallée introduces the concept of Distributed NFV, or D-NFV, and why service providers are increasingly looking at it as they begin to roll out virtualized network functions to their customers.

Why 5G Will Change Everything About The Network

Ciena’s Brian Lavallée takes a deep dive into the coming world of 5G and shows why the exact details of what a 5G network will look like is still up for debate.

5G wireless needs fiber, and lots of it

When the topic of 5G wireless comes up, your first thought likely isn't about fiber networks running under the ground. But as Ciena's Brian Lavallée explains, 5G mobile networks will significantly affect both the wireless side (obviously!)

Primer: What is mobile fronthaul?

You know mobile backhaul...but what is mobile fronthaul? In this primer, our expert Brian Lavallée explains both mobile backhaul and fronthaul and how they address the growing

North Sea Pathways: Digital Oilfields to Ultra-Secure Data Centers

Tampnet, a Norwegian based global operator, uses Ciena gear to support the operation of the largest offshore multi-terabit, low latency optical network in the North Sea, which reliably serves over 240 offshore assets such mobile rigs, Oil&Gas

Ciena’s 8700 Packetwave Platform now has a new Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certification for 100GbE services, which was presented by the MEF at this week’s GEN15 event in Dallas, TX. The

A (Miserable) Day in the Life of a Submarine Field Technician

Meet Erik. Erik is a submarine network field technician. Erik has a tough job. Let's look at all the challenges he faces in trying to get the job done.

Why “network slicing” is the key to 5G network adoption

The 5G bandwidth promise is a whopping 10Gbps to each end user. But what would someone actually do with this amount of bandwidth? Like, how many high resolution cat videos can you watch at once? How big is your smartphone screen? Well, this is the

Nothing demonstrates our dependence on mobile connectivity quite like the long summer vacation from school. How else are parents going to entertain angst kids on the long trip to grandma’s house?