June 25, 2002 --Ciena (Linthicum, MD) today announced that global carrier Sprint has purchased and deployed the CoreDirector intelligent optical core switch in more than 20 cities in its international network, and has placed orders for the MetroDirector K2 metro switch for deployment this summer.
CoreDirector delivers Ciena's Smart Ring technology, which allows Sprint to deploy rings with performance equivalent to four fiber bidirectional line-switched rings (BLSR) at a significantly lower cost. Smart Rings consolidate many SONET ADMs into a single device, allowing Sprint to more cost efficiently deploy network facilities while maintaining the high reliability and fast network protection of traditional SONET ADMs.
Once deployed, the MetroDirector K2 will provide international service aggregation in Sprint's U.S. core central offices, further enhancing the efficiencies afforded by Sprint's CoreDirector network.
CoreDirector and MetroDirector K2 join CoreStream, Ciena's long-haul DWDM platform, in Sprint's network. Those three products are part of Ciena's LightWorks architecture, which enables service providers to deploy unprecedented amounts of capacity while leveraging network intelligence to manage that capacity.