CIENA Honored by SBC Communications.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LINTHICUM, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 2004

CIENA(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), a leading global provider of innovative network solutions, today announced that its commitment to excellence has earned the company recognition as an outstanding supplier to SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE: SBC), one of the world's leading data, voice and Internet services providers.

"SBC is proud of its longstanding tradition of Going Beyond the Call(TM) for its customers," said Maureen Merkle, president, SBC Procurement. "We succeed at that because strategic supply chain partners like CIENA consistently go above and beyond in meeting our needs."

CIENA was one of a select group of 39 suppliers honored for their work in helping SBC deliver outstanding service to its customers during the past year. CIENA was recognized for its contributions in the Product & Service Performance category.

"As one of the world's most respected service providers, SBC is a premier customer for our DN 7000(TM) family of multiservice switches, and we are especially proud to be honored by SBC for superior product performance," said Bob O'Neil, vice president and general manager of CIENA's Data Networking Group. "This award represents the hard work of many people at CIENA who are firmly committed to providing the quality solutions that enable efficient delivery of carrier-grade data services."

CIENA's DN 7000 product family enables service providers to deliver customized services based on customer demand and service area density at lower price points than any product on the market today. From a single platform, the DN 7000 series delivers native ATM, Frame Relay, Ethernet, Circuit Emulation Services (CES), and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) functionality. The DN 7000 series multiservice edge switching platform allows service providers to protect and expand their current Layer 2 investment and migrate to emerging protocols and applications, such as IP/MPLS.

As part of the annual recognition program, SBC took out a half-page advertisement in the April 29 issue of the Wall Street Journal to announce its supplier awards.

ABOUT CIENA

CIENA Corporation delivers innovative network solutions to the world's largest service providers and enterprises, increasing the cost-efficiency of current services while enabling the creation of new carrier-class data services built upon the existing network infrastructure. Additional information about CIENA can be found at www.ciena.com.

NOTE TO INVESTORS

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions of CIENA (the Company) that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this release, including but not limited to the features and benefits of CIENA's products are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in such forward-looking statements, due to risks and uncertainties associated with the Company's business, which include the risk factors disclosed in the Company's Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 19, 2004. Forward looking statements include statements regarding the Company'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. The Company assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.