VSNL and Tata Teleservices Build First Nationwide Intelligent Optical Mesh Network in India Using Ciena's CoreDirector

Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ:CIEN), the network specialist, today announced that VSNL, a leading communications solutions provider and member of the US $29 billion Tata Group, has deployed Ciena’s CoreDirector® Multiservice Optical Switches to create the first nationwide intelligent optical mesh network in India. Fully operational today with live customer traffic, the new network enables VSNL to offer its customers maximum network reliability and service agility using automated service restoration and provisioning. The new network will also be used by Tata Teleservices (TTSL), one of India’s premier mobile and fixed service providers. As a leading international communications provider in one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world, where teledensity is expected to more than double by the end of 2008*, VSNL’s new backbone network features a fully-meshed architecture throughout India. The mesh design enables the network to survive multiple failures caused by either natural disasters or man-made issues, such as accidental fiber cuts. Based on CoreDirector’s industry-leading, standards-based control plane, VSNL’s mesh network automatically routes traffic around network failures based on its real-time knowledge of the network’s available bandwidth and ability to find the best alternate routes. Based on this network intelligence, Ciena’s CoreDirector restores traffic within milliseconds, instead of the hours or days typically involved in manual restorations. "By delivering the first, true nationwide mesh network in India, we are offering our customers the industry’s highest level of reliability to support their mission-critical traffic,” said Matthew Ma, vice president, Ethernet and Transmission Engineering, VSNL. "More importantly, based on the intelligent, automated provisioning and multiservice capabilities of the network, we can quickly address customer requests for increased speeds or new services with the simplicity of remote, point-and-click provisioning. Overall, this architecture enables us to deliver better overall customer service in a telecom market that is expected to grow more than 20 percent by 2009.**” VSNL already has extensive experience with mesh networking based on existing CoreDirector deployments throughout its global network, and is now leveraging that experience and technology to deliver the same benefits to its customers throughout India. By interconnecting the new CoreDirector-based network in India with the existing network, VSNL now has the ability to offer its customers the benefits of a truly global, mesh-based network. "Ciena is pleased to be a strategic partner of VSNL as it deploys a critical core infrastructure throughout India that combines the scalability, performance and reliability needed to deliver communications services to help support the country’s rapid telecom growth,” said Mike Aquino, senior vice president of worldwide sales, Ciena. "This expansion of our business relationship with VSNL, along with our growing presence in India, highlights Ciena’s continued commitment to serving this fast-growing economy as the network specialist.” A key element of Ciena’s FlexSelect Architecture and the global market leader in optical switching, CoreDirector is a multiservice, multiprotocol optical switching system that consolidates the functionality of a multiservice provisioning platform, digital cross-connect and Ethernet switch into a single, high-capacity intelligent switching system that not only improves network reliability but also can reduce network operator capex by as much as 65 percent and opex by as much as 85 percent. The embedded intelligence of CoreDirector’s FlexSelect OS standards-based optical control plane provides 99.9999 percent reliability and real-time resource inventory discovery, databases synchronization, intelligent mapping of service requests to network resources and fully automated activation and deactivation of network resources. About Ciena Ciena specializes in network transition. We provide the flexible platforms, intelligent software and professional services to build converged networks for enhanced services and applications. With a growing global presence, Ciena leverages its heritage of practical innovation to deliver maximum performance and economic value in communications networks worldwide. 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-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 31, 2007. 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. *Estimate from research and opinion firm Cris Infac. **Estimate from Gartner Inc. of forecasted growth of Indian telecom spending through 2009.