Spirit Communications will upgrade its network footprint in the Carolinas with equipment from Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN), the optical transport systems vendor announced yesterday. Ciena will supply its 5430 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switching System (RSS) and OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane software for the fiber-optic network project.
Spirit will use Ciena’s 5430 RSS to link its major points-of-presence (POPs) in North and South Carolina. The increased switching capacity the 5430 RSS will provide at each location will support both TDM traffic migrated from legacy systems as well as Optical Transport Network (OTN) and Carrier Ethernet traffic. Running the OneConnect control plane software, Spirit also will improve network resiliency and service availability via support for mesh restoration.
In addition to creating a more robust network, the combination of 5430 RSS and the Ciena 4200 Advanced Services Platform and 6500 Packet-Optical Platform already in Spirit’s network accelerate service turn-up, and enable the carrier to offer low-latency, high-capacity services such as optical VPNs.
“By deploying Ciena’s optical switching and control plane technology, we are able to establish a high-availability mesh network between the major POP locations within our footprint across the Carolinas,” said Greg Guerra, executive vice president, business development and product management at Spirit via a Ciena press release. “Additionally, the network enhancements will allow us to scale our network, both now and in the future, to support our customers’ increasing demand for Carrier Ethernet services, wireless backhaul, and data center interconnectivity.”
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