August 9, 2004 Linthicum, MD and Piscataway, NJ--CIENA and Telcordia Technologies are jointly developing technology designed to help incumbent local-exchange carriers (ILECs) to more efficiently manage high-speed Ethernet services over their existing network infrastructures.
Metro Ethernet services represent a $3.3 billion global opportunity today, with an expected growth to $15 billion by 2007, according to an IDC study, "Worldwide Metro Ethernet Internet Access Services Forecast, 2003-2007," published May 2003
The collaboration aims to establish Operations Support Systems (OSS) features to support the cost-effective deployment of advanced Ethernet-over-SONET services, specifically those enabled by CIENA's CN 2600 Multiservice Edge Aggregator. Through the Generic Feature Development Services (GFDS) Program, Telcordia and CIENA are co-investing in numerous enhancements for SONET Virtual Concatenation enabling dynamic inventory management, alarm notification and automated flow-through provisioning of capacity for Ethernet services. With these enhancements, RBOCS can offer high-speed, carrier-class Ethernet services by leveraging their current OSS and SONET infrastructures.
The CIENA-Telcordia collaboration on Ethernet service delivery solutions validates the previously announced strategic relationship between the two companies and underscores the importance of OSS features that enable carriers to deploy new services, improve service levels, and optimize network assets without requiring significant additional financial investments.
"Together with Telcordia, we're helping ILEC customers create and deliver a new generation of revenue-rich services over their current OSSs and networks - combining the flexibility and efficiency of data services with the reliability of SONET," said Tom Mock, senior vice president of strategic planning at CIENA. "This supports CIENA's ongoing approach to evolving the telecom network to support highly reliable and valuable data services."
"Generating new revenue streams from existing network assets is the key to gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage in today's telecom industry - and it's what keeps many senior execs awake at night," said Dennis Tinley, senior vice president OSS solutions at Telcordia. "Teaming with CIENA to enable ILECs to maximize the significant opportunity in the Ethernet services market brings our Elementive strategy to life and represents the continued success of this relationship. Telcordia is delivering on its commitment to transform its OSMINE program to a vehicle that provides timely solutions to sophisticated technology challenges and makes delivering new services a simpler proposition for carriers worldwide."
The recent teamwork also demonstrates the individual commitments from Telcordia and CIENA to work in partnership with industry leaders to advance the transformation of the telecommunications sector by introducing open, standards-based technologies that extend the value of carriers' existing network investments and support easy integration with other internally developed or third-party applications.
The new OSS features will support CIENA's CN 2600 Multiservice Edge Aggregator (formerly known as ONLINE Edge), which provides a single platform for carriers to deliver Ethernet, TDM, and storage services. The solution is deployable over existing ILEC infrastructure, lowers the capital cost of service delivery by as much as 60%, and lowers operating expenses through platform consolidation and automated service provisioning.