Ciena to Buy Two Firms, Launch Optical Network

LINTHICUM, Md., March 14 -- Ciena Corp. has agreed to acquire Lightera Networks and Omnia Communications in two transactions worth approximately $980 million. Ciena announced that the move would result in formation of The Ciena LightWorks Initiative, a program to change the fundamental economics of service provider networks.
The company asserts that optical networking and dense wavelength division multiplexing technology changed the economics of bandwidth in service-provider networks and opened the door for high-capacity services. Consequently the core of the new network will be Ciena's dense wavelength division multiplexing optical networking equipment and Lightera's intelligent optical core switching platform.