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LINTHICUM, MD. (March 16) BUSINESS WIRE -March 16, 1998--CIENA
Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN) today announced it will begin shipments of
its next generation dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM)
system for long-haul networks, the MultiWave(R) 4000. The MultiWave
4000 delivers the industry's first 40-channel DWDM system in commercial
production and provides unprecedented scaleability with 50 Ghz channel
spacing, another industry first. This allows the MultiWave 4000 to be
upgraded from 40 to 96 channels on a channel-by-channel basis.
This scaleability is made possible by a unique optical architecture,
utilizing 50 Ghz channel spacing. CIENA's in-fiber Bragg gratings
expertise enables precise channel spacing half that of currently
deployed commercial DWDM systems. As a result, CIENA's MultiWave 4000
allows service providers to economically increase network bandwidth by
up to 96 times current capacity - by adding wavelengths, or channels,
as network traffic demands.
In a separate announcement today, CIENA reached an agreement with
Sprint Corporation to supply the MultiWave 4000, with deployment to
begin next month. This follows successful factory acceptance testing of
a fully populated, 40-channel, 100 Gb/s MultiWave 4000 DWDM system at
Sprint's facilities in Burlingame, California.
"The MultiWave 4000 demonstrates the true potential of CIENA's unique
MultiWave Technologies(TM)," said Steve Alexander, CIENA's vice
president and chief technology officer. "MultiWave Technologies are the
keys to CIENA's ability to develop, manufacture and deliver real
solutions for real world networks. The industry has talked about moving
channel spacing from 100 Ghz to the narrower 50 Ghz spacing, but CIENA
is the first to deliver it."
"Increasing the number of channels in DWDM systems is only a part of
the puzzle," states Steve Chaddick, CIENA's senior vice president of
products and technologies. "Useful bandwidth has to be reliable and
error free. Performance monitoring, robust network management, and
standard, open optical interfaces are key enablers of the construction
of optical networks with DWDM transport. MultiWave 4000 addresses all
these needs and is a significant step in the evolution of broadband
networks. DWDM networks are now a reality."
The MultiWave 4000 includes several of CIENA's innovative MultiWave
Technologies such as SmartSpan(TM) and WaveLock(TM). SmartSpan provides
dynamic management of the optical layer including optical line
amplifiers. It ensures reliability and performance by embedding
software intelligence within each MultiWave component. WaveLock
performs continuous frequency locking resulting in extremely high
stability in all conditions, a critical capability as channel density
increases.
CIENA's MultiWave 4000 is ideally suited for service providers'
long-haul, dense route applications that require scaleable capacity.
The system's open architecture enables carriers to mix SONET/SDH, ATM
and IP traffic on a common optical network while eliminating the
intervening synchronous layer in evolving data-centric ATM and IP
networks.
Other features of the MultiWave 4000 include standard, inexpensive,
short reach interfaces between the optical transport network and
switching, routing or TDM platforms and the ability to scale in-service
one channel at a time by simply adding channel modules to the span
terminals. Optical add/drop multiplexers, Erbium doped fiber amplifiers
(EDFA) and network management are also provided in the system. NOTE TO
INVESTORS
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