July 27, 2004 Linthicum, MD--Ciena Corporation today announced a multi-year agreement with the Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) for deployment of optical transport systems to enhance its network for delivery of next-generation voice and data services to utility and rural community customers in the Pacific Northwest. Initial deployments of Ciena's CoreStream Agility Optical Transport System are underway.
NoaNet, a non-profit wholesale carrier providing TDM, Ethernet and IP terminations, primarily to a rural customer base, selected Ciena to facilitate advanced service delivery capabilities in addition to meeting diverse bandwidth needs and improving service economics. CoreStream Agility maximizes NoaNet's existing bandwidth by efficiently scaling the carrier-class, ring-based system to meet increasing demand for delivering high capacity services at the edge of the network.
"Fault tolerance, scalability, redundancy and carrier-class operation are critical to NoaNet's ability to deliver advanced services to our customer base. Ciena's CoreStream Agility ensures we achieve those objectives and that our customers experience the same level of service they could expect in urban areas," said Rob Kopp, chief technology officer at NoaNet. "Ciena also brings a wealth of experience in transport technologies and offered us the most compelling technical solution for efficiently increasing capacity and refining network capabilities. And, the platform's technical roadmap for supporting future applications proves to us that Ciena is committed to continuous development."
NoaNet is deploying CoreStream Agility on a new route extension to its data network where OC-192 line rates were required. Additionally, by leveraging Ciena's Select optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM), an integrated network element for software-configurable wavelength switching, NoaNet enjoys enhanced network flexibility and significantly lower operating costs utilizing remote configuration capabilities.
"With CoreStream Agility, NoaNet is able to scale its network appropriately while maintaining superior resiliency for meeting stringent service demands as broadband is rapidly pushed out further into rural areas," said Steve Alexander, Ciena's chief technology officer and general manager of the company's Core Networking Group. "Evolving the core network to support delivery of high-bandwidth services at the edge and driving down capital and operational costs end-to-end are vital elements to the success of every service provider today, and CoreStream Agility helps NoaNet to leverage both."
CoreStream Agility also meets NoaNet's requirements for maintaining standard architectures and technologies, which allow the service provider to offer new, advanced services on top of established technologies to leverage existing investments. Ciena's open architecture ensures that NoaNet's utility members and wholesale customers can easily connect their communication systems to the NoaNet backbone for seamless service delivery to service providers.