Business

Metromedia Fiber Network optical network offering to incorporate DWDM equipment from Cisco Systems

Jan. 18, 2001

Metromedia Fiber Network Inc., a provider of optical Internet infrastructure within key metropolitan areas domestically and internationally, has expanded its existing relationship with Cisco Systems Inc. to include Cisco's DWDM equipment in MFN's WaveChannel Optical Network solution.

Metromedia Fiber Network Inc. (MFN) (Nasdaq: MFNX), a provider of optical Internet infrastructure within key metropolitan areas domestically and internationally, has expanded its existing relationship with Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) to include Cisco's DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) equipment in MFN's WaveChannel Optical Network solution, starting with the Cisco Metro 1500 Series.

Under this relationship, MFN's WaveChannel customers will be offered a choice in technology for their dedicated fiber-optic and DWDM networks. Through WaveChannel, MFN offers enterprise customers the industry's only fully private and dedicated "wavelength to the door" solution. It combines all the advantages of a building-to-building, dedicated fiber-optic network with unshared DWDM equipment that is fully integrated and managed by MFN.

WaveChannel expands the ability of MFN's dark fiber customers to deploy advanced applications, such as storage area networks (SAN), data mirroring, disaster recovery, data warehousing and sophisticated high-resolution video networks. It allows enterprises to send data via protocols such as IP, Gigabit Ethernet, ESCON, HDTV, Fibre Channel, SONET and ATM directly and simultaneously over the same dark-fiber network. Since it is fully managed and sold by the wavelength, WaveChannel eliminates up-front capital expenditures and ongoing maintenance costs.

The Cisco Metro 1500 is a protocol-independent DWDM solution that supports 32 wavelengths per fiber pair. The combination of MFN's WaveChannel service and Cisco's DWDM technology will enable enterprise customers to expand the distance and application capabilities of existing local and metropolitan area networks, and storage networks, while addressing the need to move large amounts of data, voice and video quickly, transparently and inexpensively. Customers will be able to build serverless offices and virtual data centers across metropolitan distances that are cost-effective and easily provisioned.