State-of-the-Art Universal Switching and Transport Solution Provides Scalable Foundation for Flexible and Efficient High-Speed Services, including Coherent 100G

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MUNICH, Germany, 7 February 2017 – Coriant, a global supplier of SDN-enabled end-to-end packet optical networking and DCI solutions, today announced that Broadband Infraco, a leading provider of telecommunication and wholesale services in South Africa, will use the Coriant® mTera® Universal Transport Platform to modernize and enhance its nationwide fiber optic backbone network. The Coriant solution, which includes state-of-the-art OTN switching and sophisticated end-to-end network management, will enable Broadband Infraco to cost-effectively meet increasing customer demand for high-capacity services while enhancing network scalability, efficiency, and reliability.

"We remain committed to delivering best-in-class broadband services that help accelerate economic development throughout South Africa and ensuring downstream cost and efficiency benefits for our customers," said Puleng Kwele, Chief Executive of Broadband Infraco. "As end-user applications continue to evolve and become increasingly bandwidth-intensive, a robust and flexible backbone network is critical to helping our customers keep pace in this rapidly changing landscape. Coriant's state-of-the-art technology is playing a key role as we upgrade our infrastructure to support a new generation of broadband applications and wholesale services, including 100G."

The Broadband Infraco transport infrastructure, the second largest commercial national long distance fiber optic network in South Africa, spans almost 15,000 kilometers of fiber and 156 Points of Presence (PoPs). To maximize utilization of its fiber assets and expand its suite of wholesale services, Broadband Infraco will deploy the mTera® UTP in major PoPs throughout its nationwide network beginning in Q1 2017. Purpose-built for network modernization, the mTera® UTP will enable Broadband Infraco to cost-efficiently aggregate, groom, and transport diverse traffic types, while supporting seamless and cost-effective migration of legacy services, including SDH. Provisioning and management of the Broadband Infraco wholesale services (e.g. 2.5G, 10G, 40G, and 100G) will be provided by the Coriant® Transport Network Management System (TNMS), a robust management platform that helps reduce operating expenses and improve service resiliency through sophisticated end-to-end network control, automated provisioning features, and advanced planning capabilities.

"With cutting-edge packet optical transport innovation and strong local expertise and support, we are confident in our ability to help Broadband Infraco meet its goal of modernizing its infrastructure to better serve its customers – today, tomorrow, and well into the future," said Richard Fellner, Regional Vice President, EMEA, Coriant.

The mTera® UTP is an extremely flexible multiservice transport solution that supports software-defined Universal Switching, including OTN, Carrier Ethernet, MPLS-TP, and SONET/SDH in a single, power-efficient system architecture. With a compact form factor that supports an extremely dense 7 Tbps of universal switching capacity per shelf with up to 12 Tbps of total switching capacity per rack, the mTera® UTP provides Broadband Infraco a scalable foundation for future network growth.