September 8, 2004 Murray Hill, NJ -- Lucent Technologies today announced a three-year agreement with Global Crossing to enhance Global Crossing's optical transmission throughout its worldwide IP network. The agreement will enable Global Crossing to deliver higher levels of quality and service to its enterprise and carrier customers over its MPLS-based IP network, while providing annual operating savings for Global Crossing.
Lucent will supply the LambdaUnite Multi-Service Switch (MSS) and Navis Optical Management System (OMS), as well as technical support and network maintenance provided by Lucent Worldwide Services. The Lucent solution offers a next-generation intelligent optical transmission platform to support converged voice, video, and data traffic throughout Global Crossing's global MPLS-based IP network.
"Network reliability, interoperability and security are key factors that allow us to provide dependable services such as IP VPNs, VoIP, and collaboration services to our customers," explains Dan Enright, Global Crossing's executive vice president of operations. "The Lucent solution enables us to launch new services and expand our existing Gigabit Ethernet offerings and transparent wave services, while driving our overall reliability and availability to even higher levels."
"The LambdaUnite MSS enables Global Crossing to quickly offer various next-generation services to meet the ever-changing demands of their customers," adds Gerry Cafaro, vice president of sales for Lucent. "We are pleased that Global Crossing has recognized the merits of our high-bandwidth management solution that not only offers their customers current and future solutions, it also provides significant savings for Global Crossing in the area of operational expenses."
Developed by Bell Labs, the LambdaUnite MSS is a next-generation optical transport system that bridges traffic between data-intensive metro networks and high-speed optical core networks, connecting cities, campuses, and corporate networks to larger, long-haul public networks. It enables service providers to seamlessly upgrade their networks and allows them to deliver new value-added services such as Gigabit Ethernet, say Lucent representatives. The compact size and low energy requirements of LambdaUnite MSS also mean operators can achieve significant cost savings compared to traditional systems.
This flexible, single-shelf system was recently optimized for smaller metro applications, supporting in-service upgrades from 160 Gbits/sec to 320 Gbits/sec, as well as to 640 Gbits/sec, allowing the system to grow when network capacity increases. Mesh restoration capabilities were also added to help carriers migrate to new mesh-based networks, while at the same time leveraging traditional restoration architectures.