• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

American Fiber Systems Powers Managed Services With Ciena

Posted on: Tuesday, 30 September 2008, 09:00 CDT

Optical fiber network provider American Fiber Systems (AFS) and Ciena(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the addition of managed and dedicated wavelength services to AFS's service portfolio. Customers in financial services and healthcare are among the numerous industries that will benefit from the new variety of wavelength speeds, more intricate business continuity and bullet-proof disaster recovery services. In addition, privately-held AFS is now a designated Managed Services Provider partner within Ciena's BizConnect global partner program.

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, the market for managed and dedicated services in the U.S. is expected to be greater than $34 billion by 2013. With AFS's deployment of Ciena's remotely programmable CN 4200(R) FlexSelect(TM) Advanced Services Platform, enterprises and carriers will now have the flexibility to support constantly changing configurations and varying end-user service requirements without interrupting day-to-day operations.

"While this is a high-growth market, the opportunity we see in managed and dedicated services comes from our ability to stand out from the incumbents," said Rich Coyle, Senior Vice President of Operations at American Fiber Systems. "We make it easier and faster for our customers to turn up services. We're able to do this even better by partnering with vendors like Ciena, who allow us to provision and proactively manage new or upgraded services and additional capacity with minimal resources."

For example, AFS can address the unique requirements of a wide range of customers, industries and applications, including support for regional banks making time-sensitive financial transactions, healthcare groups sending high-bandwidth patient imagery between hospitals, and media and entertainment companies transferring high-definition video from studios to post production facilities.

"The CN 4200 family already provides the transport infrastructure for AFS's metro networks, so extending the platforms to the customer premises to deliver managed and dedicated services streamlines AFS's operations and accelerates service delivery," said Mike Aquino, senior vice president of global field operations at Ciena. "This expansion of our relationship with AFS also highlights how programmable network elements and unified transport and service management are key aspects of service-driven networks and differentiators for AFS's managed services."

As a Ciena BizConnect Managed Services Provider partner, AFS has access to Ciena's network equipment, technical support and guidance on developing service offerings, as well as an interactive online partner and marketing support community.

About Ciena's CN 4200

Ciena's CN 4200 family includes the CN 4200 MC for edge-optimized optical services from the customer premises, the CN 4200 for aggregating services onto rings at metro hubs, and the CN 4200 RS for highly scalable aggregation, grooming and routing of traffic at major network interconnection points. In addition, Ciena's ON-Center(R) Network and Service Management Suite gives AFS a unique set of tools that enable efficient service deployment and proactive network management, including service monitoring, SLA verification and other service level management information.

About American Fiber Systems

American Fiber Systems (AFS) provides metropolitan fiber optical networking infrastructure, dark fiber and transport services to carriers and large enterprises. AFS enables its customers to easily and reliably connect to a city's most important points of communications presence; Internet Service Provider (ISP) and data center locations; Inter-exchange "carrier-hotels;" wireless providers and Fortune 1000 companies. AFS has deployed more than 1.2 million miles of high-capacity, high-bandwidth metropolitan fiber optic cable since 2000 in several cities, including Atlanta, Ga.; Boise, Idaho; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Kan./Mo.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Reno and Carson City Nev.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. AFS has more than 500 capacity enabled on-net buildings and supports an addressable market teledensity of more than $9 billion in annualized telecommunications services. AFS is a privately held venture-backed company led by Dave Rusin, who shares insights on telecommunications trends and news on his blog at www.TelecomStraightShooter.com.

About Ciena

Ciena specializes in the transition to service-driven networks. We provide flexible platforms, intelligent software and professional services to help our customers use their networks to fundamentally change the way they compete. With a growing global presence, Ciena leverages its heritage of practical innovation to deliver maximum performance and economic value in communications networks worldwide. We routinely post recent news, financial results and other important announcements and information about Ciena on our website at www.ciena.com.

Note to Ciena Investors

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 5, 2008. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate,""believe,""could,""estimate,""expect,""intend,""may,""should,""will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Source: Business Wire

More News in this Category