Luminous Networks, a start-up based in Cupertino, California, announced a reseller agreement under which CIENA will market, sell and support its "PacketWave" optical transport products worldwide. Luminous' PacketWave E-Series is a low-cost multiservice transport platform for 1 Gbps or 2.5 Gbps metro rings. Like Luminous Networks' existing M-series (metro core) and C-Series (metro access) platforms, the PacketWave E500 leverages RPR layer 2 technology to integrate Ethernet and TDM services using ring architectures that are cheaper and more bandwidth-efficient than conventional SONET/SDH. The products are interoperable with CIENA's ONLINE Metro, ONLINE Edge, CoreDirector and the DN family of multiservice switches. Work is underway to integrate PacketWave into CIENA's ON-Center Management Suite.
Luminous began carrying live customer traffic in late 2000 and is currently installed in over 50 networks worldwide. The company has shipped over 40,000 ports and more than 1,200 PacketWave products to date. Its customer list includes MSOs in the US and the largest telecommunications carriers in China, including China Netcom.
Separately, Luminous Networks raised $25 million in series E funding led by CIENA and venture firm DCM-Doll Capital Management. The round was supported by investments from all the significant current investors including DynaFund Ventures, Vanguard Ventures, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Pyramid Technology Ventures. Luminous Networks had raised over $148 million in its four previous rounds of funding.
http://www.luminous.com
http://www.ciena.com
- Scientific-Atlanta and Luminous Networks offer a joint RPR solution targeted at cable operators. Scientific-Atlanta OEMs the Luminous platform and provides Asynchronous Serial Interface (ASI) and Intermediate Frequency (IF) video cards that plug into the metro optical access platform. This enables operators to centralize MPEG management, modulation and encryption functions for broadcast digital video applications at the headend. The ASI digital video broadcast (DVB) card, based on the ASI standard, supports the transport and interconnection of MPEG-2 transport streams. The Intermediate Frequency (IF) card provides transparent regional distribution of analog or digital video service over long distances.
- Luminous Networks was founded in June 1998. The company is led by Alex Naqvi, formerly VP and General Manager at Chips and Technologies.
- In September 2003, CIENA entered into a reseller agreement to market, sell and support Laurel Networks' flagship ST200 Service Edge Router, which will be integrated into CIENA's LightWorks ON-Center Management Suite. Laurel's ST200 Service Edge Router is designed for service provider IP/MPLS backbones. Separately, Laurel Networks closed a $20 million third round of funding, bringing total investment in the company to $102.3 million. The new participant in the third round is primary investor CIENA.
- In October 2002, CIENA made a strategic investment in WaveSmith Networks, a developer of multiservice data switches. In April 2003, CIENA agreed to acquire Wavesmith.
