HANOVER, Md. and Indianapolis, IN – April 8, 2015 — To support its recently announced broadband expansion project, Indiana Fiber Network, LLC (IFN) has selected converged packet optical and packet networking solutions from Ciena® (NYSE: CIEN) to ensure network resiliency, reduce costs and increase capacity. With Ciena, IFN can rapidly provision new high-speed offerings like Ethernet business services, 10G, and 100G services to its service provider, data center and enterprise customers. Bringing these scalable and secure communication services to users in both urban and rural areas will help drive sustainable economic development across the state.
Key Facts:
- IFN is owned by a consortium of 20 independent telephone companies and provides a variety of communications services, including fiber-optic broadband, to both urban and rural areas in 52 Indiana counties. Its customers include carriers, service providers, enterprise businesses, government entities, educational and healthcare institutions, as well as independent telephone company members.
- One such customer benefiting from IFN’s network is Community Health Network, one of Central Indiana’s two largest health care providers. With Ciena, IFN connected Community Howard Regional Health and Community’s affiliated Kokomo area physicians’ sites. Community Health Network relies on its own private Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) ring to connect its main Indianapolis area campuses. IFN currently provides connectivity to 24 remote locations into CHN data centers.
- Architected for network modernization projects like IFN’s, Ciena’s 5400 and 6500 converged packet optical platforms, equipped with WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors and integrated switching capabilities, will help IFN address increased bandwidth demands with the highest levels of quality and survivability. Ciena’s Flexible Grid Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) technology simplifies operations and provides greater network flexibility by enabling new wavelengths to be remotely added or dropped, which allows IFN to easily turn up new services as needed.
- IFN’s flexible network expansion, an example of Ciena’s OPn network architecture that enables programmable and scalable network designs, also benefits from Ciena’s 3930 and 3916 Service Delivery Switches, 5142 Service Aggregation Switch and OneControl Unified Management System. Together, these powerful solutions and software capabilities allow IFN to automate provisioning and streamline network management for faster service turn-up while supporting mesh restoration, which offers greater resiliency and service availability.
Executive Comments:
- “IFN has a history of providing broadband not only to urban areas, but also in some of the most rural parts of Indiana. Ciena has helped us on this journey as our exclusive provider of network infrastructure since 2006. The quality and reliability of the technology, and Ciena’s ability to help us provide cost-effective, scalable and intelligent bandwidth as our customer demands have grown over time, is unmatched.”
– Kelly Dyer, IFN President and CEO
- “IFN understands my business; they comprehend the urgency and the need for an easy process to add or make changes to our infrastructure network. We have a partnership; IFN is able to customize solutions that create real business value for Community Health Network.”
– Chris Cerny, Director of Enterprise Networking Services, Community Health Network
- “IFN’s modernized network helps position them as the go-to service provider in Indiana for advanced communications services demanded by wholesale, enterprise, research and education, and local government customers. Ciena’s converged packet optical, packet networking and intelligent software capabilities give IFN a reliable, high-performance network that ensures its customers have greater access to broadband connectivity and economic opportunity.”
– Jason Phipps, General Manager and VP of North America Sales, Ciena
