ASHBURN, Va. -- MCI (WCOEQ, MCWEQ) today announced it is deploying a new Ultra Long Haul (ULH) Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical network, the industry’s first major deployment of its kind. The ULH network will enable MCI to incrementally set new standards for service delivery, performance, and reliability. This next-generation transport network will become the foundation by which all MCI services will be delivered. Today, MCI is carrying traffic on its first ULH network route deployment in the western U.S. and expects to complete its domestic network build-out over a three to five year period.

“As we continue to execute on our IP convergence vision, MCI’s Ultra Long Haul deployment signifies a strategic, long-term investment in the future of all IP communications,” said Fred Briggs, president of MCI Operations & Technology. “We were the first to build a commercial global IP network, and now we will be the first communications company in the United States to deploy and activate the optical network of the future on a broad scale.”

The ULH network will allow MCI to dramatically simplify its internal process of provisioning network capacity from months to weeks, resulting in better network optimization and utilization for the company. As a high-capacity all-optical network infrastructure, ULH is capable of supporting OC-768 core capacity with transmission speeds up to 40Gbps – four times faster than what has been deployed by service providers today. Through this implementation, MCI will be able to enhance its management of network inventory and be much more responsive to customer demand for bandwidth.

This rapid scalability sets the stage for MCI customers to seamlessly adopt bandwidth-intensive business applications like Web Services, multimedia content distribution, grid computing, real-time imaging and storage networking. The network will also create a platform for future infrastructure-based services such as protocol-independent wavelength services and other MCI Private Line service enhancements, which MCI plans to make available later this year.

“MCI has always engineered its network with an eye on the future,” said Briggs. “By combining our current network infrastructure with next-generation ULH DWDM capabilities, MCI is uniquely positioned to efficiently manage internal costs in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”

The ULH network will allow transmission systems to extend up to 2000 KM (up to four times longer than traditional technology) without expensive electronic regeneration equipment. This serves to streamline MCI’s U.S. network infrastructure by eliminating thousands of signal regenerators, dramatically reducing both the amount of equipment in the network, and the number of physical connections between network elements. This, in turn, results in a more cost effective, more manageable and more reliable network.

In addition, ULH technology will allow MCI to provision more capacity on each fiber than is possible today. This will enable the company to cost effectively reduce the amount of transmission equipment required to deliver network capacity. In doing so, MCI’s network will be greatly simplified by consolidating transmission bandwidth onto a common, reliable, all-optical network infrastructure. This optical network is designed for reliability by utilizing the time-proven protection of MCI's ring architecture and will provide diverse traffic routing to ensure optimum network performance.

MCI’s ULH network will be supported by a new and innovative network management system enabling true end-to-end automation for accurate monitoring, provisioning and network management. Overall, with fewer elements and systems to monitor and maintain, ULH allows more efficient operations without compromising network reliability or security. This means MCI will be able to better meet its customer’s needs while reducing costs.

MCI has selected CIENA Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), and Siemens (NYSE: SI) as its vendors of choice for the ULH domestic deployment.

MCI Ciena Corp.

Siemens AG