CIENA will acquire Catena Networks, a privately-held supplier of broadband access equipment, for approximately $486.7 million in stock (77.5 million shares of CIEN). Catena Networks has deployed more than 5,500 integrated broadband access solutions for RBOCs, IOCs and CLECs. Catena's major customer include BellSouth and two other RBOCs.
Catena generated approximately $25 million in revenue in Q4 and is recently profitable. The company has approximately 250 employees. It has offices in Ottawa, Ontario and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Catena's product line includes:
- CNX-5, a POTS+DSL linecard replacement for upgrading Lucent's SLC Series 5 (SLC-5) Digital Loop Carrier (DLC). The card-for-card upgrade eliminates the need for remote DSLAMs. It provides two lines of integrated POTS and two lines of DSL and replaces cards that provide two lines of POTS only. The product was first introduced in January 2001.
- CN100 Broadband Loop Carrier, which integrates the functions of a DSLAM, Digital Loop Carrier System and Media Gateway and enables remote provisioning and management. The product was first announced in June 2001.
- CN1000FX Fiber-to-the-X solution, which consists of new Optical Line Cards (OLCs) and Optical Network Units (ONUs) for Catena's CN1000 Broadband Loop Carrier Remote Terminal. Each Optical Line Card supports four ONUs via fiber connections. Catena's Optical Network Unit extends the POTS+ADSL loop electronics from the CN1000 Broadband Loop Carrier Remote Terminal closer to end-users. Each ONU supports 24 ports of integrated POTS+ADSL, narrowband special services and G.SHDSL, and is engineered to support VDSL. Catena's Fiber-to-the-X solutions are compliant with the ITU's G.983 series standards for Broadband Passive Optical Networks (BPONs), and Telcordia's GR-909 requirements for Fiber-in-the-Loop (FITL) access systems. The solution was first announced in June 2003.
- Catena Networks is headed by Jim Hjartarson, a co-founder of the company. Prior to forming Catena, Hjartarson was vice president and general manager at Cadence Design Systems, where he co-founded the Cadence Design Center in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
- Catena has raised $192 million in four rounds of funding. Investors include J. & W. Seligman & Co., Munder Capital Management, WestAM, Morgenthaler, Menlo Ventures, Berkeley International Capital, Worldview Technology Partners, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Bessemer Venture Partners, BCE Capital and Silicon Valley BancVentures.
