PLDT Partners with Ciena

PLDT, a leading telecoms provider in the Philippines, has deployed Ciena’s 5410 Packet-Optical Reconfigurable Switch System (RSS) and OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane software across its global network footprint. With these Ciena platforms, both critical components of the company’s OPn architecture, PLDT will create a global mesh network that interconnects points of presence worldwide into a highly resilient, intelligent mesh switching network to provide greater network performance, efficiency and resiliency to meet stringent Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements.

“As the largest telecommunications provider in the Philippines and a rapidly growing international carrier, it is critical that our infrastructure is highly reliable and capable of delivering robust broadband service and applications,” said Napoleon L. Nazareno, President and CEO, PLDT. “With the implementation of Ciena’s intelligent optical mesh network solutions across our international network, we are able to give our enterprise and wholesale customers a variety of low-latency, high-capacity services with the utmost assurance, putting us on par with large global carriers,” he adds.
“With our packet-optical technology and intelligent optical control plane software, PLDT will be able to offer its customers high-availability, high-capacity SONET/SDH, OTN and Ethernet dedicated services over a global intelligent mesh network. Additionally, our control plane software allows service providers like PLDT to fine tune their networks to be more intelligent and to quickly respond to changing network demands – without manual intervention,” said Anthony McLachlan, vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific, Ciena.

To support PLDT’s network modernization effort, Ciena’s 5410 RSS will link PLDT’s global points of presence to provide efficient aggregation, grooming and intelligent switching of SONET/SDH, OTN and Ethernet services with flexible tiered service-levels and differentiated service offerings. Customer traffic traversing PLDT’s existing and future submarine capacity network will be carried over a highly resilient mesh network design.
Ciena’s OneConnect technology will allow PLDT to quickly detect faults and automatically switch data traffic to backup routes as needed in the event of a network outage. This allows PLDT’s business customers to minimize the impact of breakages due to cable cuts, earthquakes and network outages by staying connected to their worldwide offices without any connectivity disruption, thus providing PLDT a competitive edge in the enterprise services landscape.

Additionally, PLDT will leverage Ciena’s OneControl Unified Management System, which provides comprehensive unified management, visualization and control of the network. Ciena is also providing a range of professional services for this deployment via Ciena’s Specialist Services portfolio, including installation, commissioning and project management.

In July 2012, PLDT started to deploy Ciena’s industry-leading 6500 Packet-Optical Platform with WaveLogic coherent optical technology, integrated ROADM, and OTN switching across its backbone Domestic Fiber Optic Network (DFON) to deliver the country’s first network with 40G, 100G and OTN switching capabilities. The 5410 RSS upgrade leverages Ciena's innovative GeoMesh solutions, which allows PLDT to efficiently connect its submarine and terrestrial networks into a single seamless network that is simpler, more cost-effective and forecast-tolerant as market conditions continue to change. PLDT’s new mesh network services are now commercially available and premium clients are opting to migrate to the new highly resilient intelligent optical mesh network.