IT news and products; Ciena and Interoute extend high-speed optical networking to Eastern Europe.

Ciena Corporation announced an expansion of its relationship with Interoute, owner of Europe's most advanced next-generation voice and data network, to upgrade and expand the operator's Eastern European network. The Ciena deployment will position Interoute as the first service provider to offer carrier-class 10-Gigabit wavelength and 10-Gigabit Ethernet services on-demand to enterprise customers in emerging European Union countries. The deployment has already commenced and is scheduled for completion in early 2007. The upgrade includes Ciena's and to dramatically improve Interoute's cost of delivering voice, video and data services to its growing customer base across Central and Eastern Europe. With the unique ability to automate wavelength activation and select services on demand without the need for manual intervention via Ciena's FlexiPort technology, the CoreStream and ON-Center combination enables Interoute to more efficiently manage bandwidth, reduce provisioning times and accelerate service deployment to speed both time to market and revenue. The rapidly growing Eastern European telecommunications market is predicted to reach $20.6 billion (USD) in fixed network service revenue by 2010, according to global IT research analyst firm Gartner. firm Gartner. Interoute's pan-European next-generation network covers 35,000 kilometers, spanning 77 cities in 21 countries and includes every major European business center.

Interoute's network is used by all major incumbents and governments around the world, as well as more than 14,000 corporate customers. In addition, more than #1 billion of e-commerce is handled by Interoute's data centers every day, making it a key part of Europe's digital supply chain.

www.ciena.com