Trial demonstrates flexibility and scalability of Comcast’s network to serve growing bandwidth demands using Ciena’s WaveLogic Coherent technology

Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Ciena^® Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), the network specialist, successfully completed a live field trial of a 1Terabit/sec (Tb/s) optical transmission spanning nearly 1,000 km. By demonstrating the ability to increase the traffic carrying capacity by 2.5 times, this trial showed how Comcast’s existing fiber network can scale to keep pace with the bandwidth demands of cloud computing, video, and multimedia applications, as well as data center connectivity. The companies made the announcement today at the SCTE Tec-Expo taking place at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

The 1Tb/s trial took place during the first week of October over Comcast’s existing long-haul fiber infrastructure connecting Ashburn, Va. to Charlotte, N.C. This is believed to be the first trial in which live data traffic was carried over a 1Tb/s 16QAM super-channel on an existing, commercial network. At the same time, that network was also carrying customer traffic over 10G, 40G and 100G wavelengths, all coexisting on a mix of flexible and 50GHz-spacedfixed grid channels.

The 1Tb/s trial used Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform solution that combined flexible grid Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (ROADM) with 16QAM coherent modulation to achieve 5b/s/Hz of spectral efficiency over a distance of nearly 1,000 km of uncompensated ELEAF fiber. Ciena’s next generation Raman and programmable gain amplifiers, the newest addition to the WaveLogic intelligent coherent portfolio, provided optimized performance and system reach. The trial ran in parallel over the same optical infrastructure that supports a combination of HD video, Internet and voice traffic on Comcast’s existing 100G national backbone.

“We continue to work with Ciena to leverage our already installed Ciena 6500 platforms to deliver more content, faster Internet speeds and enable new cloud-based applications for our customers,” said Steve Surdam executive director, Network Engineering at Comcast Cable. “As we look to continuously evolve our network infrastructure, Ciena’s high-capacity Terabit optical technology will give us the flexibility and scalability required to future proof our network to deliver next-generation products and services for our customers.”

The success of this trial was made possible via the joint collaboration of Ciena and Comcast throughout the entire process – from strategy and engineering to configuration and execution.

“Innovative service providers like Comcast know that they can rely on Ciena’s field-proven, industry-leading converged packet optical technology to keep pace with today’s surging bandwidth requirements. Our technology goes beyond scaling bandwidth to make the network more intelligent and responsive to service and application needs, which is the basis of Ciena’s OPⁿ architecture approach and increasingly critical in today’s highly competitive environment,” said Francois Locoh-Donou, senior vice president, Global Products Group at Ciena. “This trial is a significant accomplishment because it took place across a production network and demonstrated our ability to extend the scalability benefits of new coherent modulation techniques beyond metro and regional distances.”

At the SCTE event, Ciena (booth #1326) will showcase advanced packet optical solutions, including the 6500 shelf equipped with the Terabit super-channel technology used in the trial with Comcast.

Comcast has been leveraging Ciena’s coherent 40G and 100G technologies across its national fiber network since 2009. Ciena’s packet networking solutions also support Comcast’s Metro Ethernet services offering.

About Comcast CableComcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to residential customers under the XFINITY brand and also provides these services to businesses.  Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings.  Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company.  Visit http://corporate.comcast.com/ for more information.

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. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPⁿ, its approach for building open next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

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Forward-looking statements. 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 11, 2013. 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.