Cinia cuts Ribbon deal for transport network upgrade

Aiming to advance its secure high-availability data network and software solutions portfolio, operator Cinia has selected the Apollo OTN transport and switching platforms from Ribbon Communications as part of its programme to upgrade its backbone transport network in its home territory of Finland and Northern Europe.

Founded in 2015, Cinia’s operations are based on expertise in modern application development, data network technologies and critical operating environments.

It owns and operates roughly 15,000km of fibre optic trunk network in Northern Europe, with international connections to Central Europe routed through the high-capacity Cinia C-Lion1 submarine cable, launched in 2016.

By virtue of a direct connection, Cinia’s Northern Digital Highway transmits data from Helsinki to Frankfurt and back in 19.7 milliseconds, and the network provider says that fast, secure and reliable data connections provide international organisations with the shortest and fastest data link from Central European network hubs to Northern Europe, providing an ideal data centre environment and a natural gateway to Asian and Eastern European markets. It adds that its operations based in Finland benefit from an efficient platform for real-time global business.

By combining its own services with those of partners, the company believes it can provide reliable networking solutions that help its customers “write their own digital success stories”.

At the heart of its rationale to upgrade is the company’s stated mission statement that the global economy runs on efficient data networks and increasingly intelligent software solutions, and that fast connectivity, reliable information systems and secure data vaults are the core building blocks of the digital world.

In the upgrade, real-time communications software and network solutions firm Ribbon said Cinia will benefit from a number of key features, including high capacity, low latency and resilience.

The Apollo 9600 series of optical transport platforms and Apollo 9900 series OTN switching platforms will see use at Cinia’s critical nodes for wavelength grooming and route protection.

The so-called flexgrid backbone is said to be able to accelerate service provisioning by using “colourless”, directionless, reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to map services onto wavelengths. The solution also transports and monitors alien lambdas, enabling Cinia to offer other carriers transit services with their own wavelengths.

Additionally, the deployed platform with Ribbon’s TM800E programmable transmission blades is said to be able to support the transport of 400GbE client connections, adding the latest generation of high-speed service functionality while maintaining network efficiency.

“The importance of connectivity platforms including transport networks has clearly increased in today’s digital society, and this applies directly to Cinia’s customers as well,” said Cinia executive vice-president Taneli Vuorinen.

Steve McCaffery, Ribbon’s executive vice-president of sales of EMEA and APAC, said: “Our long-term co-operation with Ribbon’s IP Optical team (former ECI) has been successful, and by deploying Ribbon’s optical transport networking (OTN) solutions into Cinia’s backbone network, we’ve increased our flexibility and offering to respond to market demand.

“Cinia offers a very specific set of capabilities to its customers, and seamless transport continuity is paramount,” he said. “Our modular optical networking solution enabled them to upgrade their network capabilities with no interruption while further enhancing the quality of their commercial offering.”