News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren Rotman" <>]

Internet2 FiberCo and Ciena Partner to Deliver Professional Services and
Optical Networking Equipment for Research and Higher Education Community 

ANN ARBOR, Mich. and LINTHICUM, Md. - May 1, 2007 - Internet2 FiberCo(R), a
fiber holding company formed to support dark fiber initiatives for U.S.
research and higher education, and Ciena(R) Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the
network specialist, today announced that the companies have teamed to offer
a suite of customized professional services and optical networking equipment
solutions to assist Internet2 members with planning, installing, and
managing their advanced network infrastructures. Through the agreement,
Internet2 members will be able to choose Ciena's industry-leading products
and services to support the development of regional optical infrastructures
that can reliably sustain the most leading-edge network applications and
services. 

"The research and education community continues to evolve their network
infrastructures to take advantage of the latest advances in optical
networking that can support the most high-performance network applications
and experimentation," said Linda Roos, project manager of Internet2 FiberCo.
"FiberCo's new agreement with Ciena builds on our community's longstanding
partnership with the company and provides our members more flexibility and
choices to meet their network development and management needs." 

FiberCo will offer Ciena's basic and professional services to provide
Internet2 members end-to-end solutions and support for any and all
components of their dynamic research networks, including network management
and maintenance. The range of offerings includes: network architecture and
design, installation, vendor-neutral engineering support, staging and
implementation services, and program management. 

Additionally, FiberCo can offer Internet2 members a wide range of products
within Ciena's FlexSelectT Architecture to provide optical transport and
switching capabilities that enable dynamic Ethernet lightpath connectivity.
These product offerings include the CN 4200T FlexSelect Advanced Services
Platform, the CoreDirectorR Multiservice Optical Switch, the CN 2000R
Storage and LAN Extension Platform and the CoreStreamR Agility Optical
Transport System. 

"A partner to the research and education community for more than a decade,
Ciena remains focused on advancing technology that can meet the evolving
connectivity needs of research networks," said Jeff Verrant, director of
research and education initiatives at Ciena. "Our collaboration with FiberCo
strategically extends our solutions to members of the Internet2 community to
support the advancement of next-generation, high-performance networking,
while providing a flexible foundation to meet network challenges in the
future." 

The new Fiberco partnership extends Ciena's collaboration with leading
institutions in the research networking community, including numerous
initiatives with Internet2 members like the advancement of optical control
plane technologies and scalability to 100G connectivity and beyond. 

FiberCo has arranged with Ciena to provide pricing for these network design
and implementation services, which can be tailored to fit individual
customer needs. 

# # #

About Internet2 FiberCoR
Internet2 FiberCo provides a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning
fiber optic network assets in support of the Internet2 community's goals of
developing and deploying advanced network applications and technologies.
FiberCo facilitates the ongoing development of regional optical networking
initiatives around the country to complement existing Internet2 network
infrastructure while providing a strategic fiber acquisition capability on
the national scale. For more information, visit: www.fiberco.org.

About Ciena
Ciena Corporation is the network specialist, focused on expanding the
possibilities for its customers' networks while reducing their cost of
ownership. The company's systems, software and services target and cure
specific network pain points so that telcos, cable operators, governments
and enterprises can best exploit the new applications that are driving their
businesses forward. 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-K, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission on March 2, 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.