COLT Selects Infinera for Pan-European Network

By
In 2009, Infinera

Enables New Services, Faster Delivery

SUNNYVALE, CA on 22 June 2009

COLT, a leading European provider of business communications, has selected an Infinera (Nasdaq: INFN) Digital Optical Network for its pan-European network to enable it to deliver a broad range of service to customers more quickly than ever before.

COLT operates a 13-country, 25,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 34 major European cities with direct fiber connections into 16,000 buildings and 18 COLT data centres. The first phase of COLT’s Infinera network connects major cities in eight countries in the business heart of Europe, including the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy.

COLT chose Infinera because they believe that the speed and simplicity of Infinera’s digital architecture will enable COLT to deliver services to their customers more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Infinera’s architecture enables the rapid delivery of services because every Infinera line card enables 100 Gigabits/second of optical capacity, which is automatically configured and available to support services once the line card is installed. With Infinera’s Bandwidth Virtualization model, COLT can both achieve rapid provisioning of a range of services as well as enjoy full utilization of the optical capacity, without complex optical engineering. This flexibility is not possible with traditional DWDM networks, where each service is tightly coupled to the wavelength transponder card.

Infinera’s unique digital architecture will also help COLT meet the growing demands of their customers.. COLT’s customers require a range of different services including wavelengths and Ethernet at varying bit rates. Through a combination of Infinera’s Just-in-TAM fulfillment program and intelligent GMPLS control plane software, COLT can rapidly deliver a broad range of new services to their customers over pre-deployed 100Gbps DWDM increments. With many of Europe’s largest financial institutions as customers, COLT is focused on delivering a network with high reliability and low latency. The use of Infinera’s photonic integration technology also delivers significant savings in space and energy consumption.

Network Deployed in Three Months

Other Infinera features that delivered value to COLT included the rapid initial deployment of the first phase of the network and Infinera’s digital performance monitoring capabilities. The first phase of the network was deployed in just three months, significantly faster than the time required by a traditional DWDM network. Based on Infinera’s large-scale photonic integrated circuits, the Infinera DTN optical system uses fewer line cards and fewer cables, simplifying and speeding up the initial deployment process. In addition, Infinera’s GMPLS-powered IQ™ network operating system supports rapid deployment with intelligent features like automatic recognition and inventorying of network assets.

“Infinera’s next generation photonic integration technology is helping COLT to achieve its goal of operating the most modern and advanced network in Europe and delivering the highest-quality services to all our customers,” commented Dr Alireza Mahmoodshahi, COLT’s Chief Technology Officer.

“We are thrilled to deliver an Infinera Digital Optical Network to COLT, one of Europe’s most respected carriers, and we believe that the Infinera network will give COLT a significant competitive advantage in fulfilling customer needs with speed and flexibility,” commented Infinera CEO Jagdeep Singh.

The Infinera DTN is a Digital ROADM for long-haul and metro core networks, combining high-capacity DWDM transport, integrated digital bandwidth management, and GMPLS-powered service intelligence in a single platform.


About Infinera

Infinera provides Digital Optical Networking systems to telecommunications carriers worldwide. Infinera’s systems are unique in their use of a breakthrough semiconductor technology: the photonic integrated circuit (PIC). Infinera’s systems and PIC technology are designed to provide customers with simpler and more flexible engineering and operations, faster time-to-service, and the ability to rapidly deliver differentiated services without reengineering their optical infrastructure. For more information, please visit http://www.infinera.com/.