Ciena Expands Global Presence with Major Middle East Deployment

Ciena^® Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced that Middle East telecommunications operator Etisalat Group (Etisalat) has deployed Ciena’s ActivSpan 4200 Advanced Services Platform for a major upgrade of its transport network in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The new network provides Etisalat with a 40G national backbone, carrying packet/IP core traffic across more than 40 locations in the UAE.

Headquartered in the UAE, where mobile penetration* has reached 200 percent, Etisalat is one of the largest telecommunications companies worldwide. Operating across 17 countries in Asia and Africa, it provides services to more than 85 million consumer and business subscribers. Since its inception in 1976, the company has gone beyond offering traditional communication services, and is today delivering state-of-the-art value-added services across its next-generation wireless and wireline networks.

Having transitioned all of its network traffic to packet/IP, Etisalat was faced with capacity constraints, particularly after its continually growing mobile traffic was transferred to an IP core. To address this, Etisalat decided to build a new transport network to support its mobile arm as well as its business IP services, residential triple play services and wireless backhaul traffic. Following a highly competitive selection process, the operator chose Ciena’s proven ActivSpan 4200 platform for a nationwide roll-out that not only addresses current capacity challenges, but also future-proofs the network for years to come.

Ciena’s ActivSpan 4200 platform offers a flexible, scalable and easily deployable solution. Utilising a 1.6 Tbps system running on a single fibre pair, the ActivSpan 4200-based network is managed by Ciena’s ON-Center^® Network and Service Management Suite. Ciena’s 40G solution allows Etisalat to scale its network and meet the growing bandwidth demands generated by its mobile traffic, optical access network and enterprise service offerings.

Mashood Ahmad, Ciena’s regional managing director, Middle East, said: "The Middle East is a significant growth area for Ciena, exemplifying our global expansion strategy. With a number of opportunities on the horizon for next-generation network deployments in the Gulf, we are delighted to have established our footprint in the region with a customer of this calibre.”

*as measured by total mobility handset penetration as a percentage of total population

About Ciena

Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. With focused innovation, Ciena brings together the reliability and capacity of optical networking with the flexibility and economics of Ethernet, unified by a software suite that delivers the industry’s leading network automation. We routinely post recent news, financial results and other important announcements and information about Ciena on our website. For more information, visit 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-K, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on December 22, 2010. 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.