Ciena®
Corporation (NYSE: CIEN), the network specialist, and Etihad Etisalat (Mobily),
the leading Saudi ICT services provider today announced the launch of
Mobily’s Advanced Connectivity Services (ACS), which is aimed at the
enterprise and public sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Delivered over Mobily’s Advanced Generation fiber optic network, ACS
delivers a range of packet-optical and OTN services to ensure secure,
highly redundant and flexible bandwidth (scaling from 1Gbps to 1Tbps) to
support cost-effective transmission of mission-critical applications.
With ACS Mobily’s financial, government, healthcare, education,
information technology and manufacturing sector clients have access to
‘bandwidth-on-demand’ connectivity. By leveraging Ciena’s OPn
architecture Mobily is able to adjust network capacity in real time to
meet changing business needs more quickly and enable access to
cloud-based services with lower latency, enhanced resiliency and lower
costs. For example, this will allow an enterprise to access cloud-based
services and securely coordinate IT applications, such as virtual
machine (VM) migrations, improving user experience, productivity and
business continuity.
Key Facts:
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The fastest growing ICT service provider in the KSA, Mobily owns more
than 40 percent of the country’s mobile market. This collaboration
with Ciena enables Mobily to extract additional value from its network
and can help Mobily to grow its market share in the enterprise segment.
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ACS enables high-performance applications such as storage, large
databases and data warehouses, storage backup systems and recovery
systems, synchronous and asynchronous network-based storage
requirements. It also includes wavelength, carrier Ethernet, and
private line services as well as international GDE and international
IPLC.
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Mobily will leverage Ciena’s technology and expertise in enabling OTN
and wavelength services, Optical and Ethernet VPNs, data center
interconnection and in-flight encryption services to provide ACS.
Ciena’s OneControl
Unified Management System, which can reduce installation and
provisioning times by as much as 75 percent, supports the rapid
deployment of the new service. In addition, with Ciena’s cloud-based
portal feature, enterprises can also have real-time visibility and
service monitoring as well as direct access to SLA reports.
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Mobily’s ACS services are enabled by the company’s next-generation
network that leverages Ciena’s portfolio – including Converged
Packet Optical, Optical
Transport Networking, Packet
Networking, and OneControl
Unified Management System, as well as support from Ciena’s Network
Transformation Solutions practice. Ciena and Mobily have been
working together since the provider’s inception. Mobily is a member of
Ciena’s BizConnect
partner program. In December 2013, the two companies completed a live
1Tb/s live field trial across Riyadh in KSA.
Executive Comments:
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“Mobily has transformed the mobile market in the KSA and is equally
determined to carry this change through to the enterprise connectivity
market. Our partnership with Ciena is making this transformation
possible; not only through its technology, but more importantly, its
ability to decipher the challenges we face in our business and with
our end customers and turn them into growth opportunities.”
–
Mohammed Basafi, chief technology officer at Mobily
-
“Enterprises and public sector organizations in the Middle East are
hungry for services that are designed to their specific requirements
and are easily available and scalable when needed. Mobily is making
this possible, monetizing its network to offer market-leading
enterprise services with the support of a network that has been
purpose-built for the cloud era. Dynamic organizations will now have
access to managed service offerings that quickly adapt to their
ever-changing requirements as well as comprehensive OVPN and
bandwidth-on-demand connectivity services."
– Omar
Alsaied, country manager and Middle East carriers sales director at
Ciena
Supporting Resources:
About Mobily
Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) was established in 2004 by a consortium led by
Etisalat, the UAE based telecom conglomerate. Mobily is the official
brand name of Etihad Etisalat, renowned as innovative ICT service
provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The awarded 25-Year telecommunication mobile license was complemented by
a subsequent purchase of a 3G license. Mobily is the 1st Saudi
communications company to get an operation license for 3rd generation
services and beyond. In December 2004, Mobily was listed on Tadawul
Stock Exchange. Today, Mobily equates to 40%+ market share of the mobile
subscriptions in the Kingdom. In March 2008, Mobily was granted approval
by CITC (Communication and Information Technology Commission) to acquire
Bayanat al-Oula which was a licensed Data Service Provider for a price
of SAR 1.5 Billion. And, in November 2008, Mobily acquired absolute
majority stakes in Zajil, the leading Saudi ISP (Internet Service
Provider).
Mobily owns vast majority shares in the Saudi National Fiber Network
(SNFN) composed with more than 16,200 KM of structured fiber cable,
panned into fully meshed links with 40G/100G coherent systems connecting
more than 35 Saudi cities plus access to 60 major hub sites for
telecommunications prime points of presence, and complimented with more
than 100 inter-metropolis fiber loops in major Saudi cities.
Furthermore, Mobily is a lead investor in prime global submarine cable
AAE-1 projects that are expected to be operational by 2016.
About Ciena
Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) 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
its OPn architecture for 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,
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Note to Ciena Investors
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-K,
which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on
December 20, 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.
Copyright Business Wire 2014