Sycamore Scores Transport Deal with New CLEC

By: Erik Kreifeldt

Chelmsford, MA-based startup Sycamore Networks has won an initial $3.0 million contract for its SN 8000 transport products from Millennium Optical Networks Inc., a New York-based competitive local exchange carrier.

The contract covers a deployment through the end of this year, when Millennium plans to serve the business districts of New Jersey. Millennium will provide carrier-to-carrier communications in metropolitan New York City in July. Founded this year, the privately-funded company is headed by Peter Tierney and Andrew Worden.

Millennium's pool of potential customers includes a high concentration of Internet service providers, domestic and international telecommunications carriers, and Fortune 100 organizations. "They're building optical rings in New York City, and will provision high-speed bandwidth services to customers on those rings across Manhattan," says Sycamore's Jeff Kiel. "The focus at Sycamore is really on high-end services—that's where Millennium's target customers are as well."

The SN 8000 platform integrates dense wavelength division multiplexing, synchronous optical networking, and networking software. "We are the customer handoff," Kiel explains. "We're the first optical networking platform to touch the customer. [Optical networking] is not something deep inside the network any more."

"When a global financial organization in New York connects with their trading partners, clearing agents and other groups across the city, their data traffic will be jumping on and off the network at various points," says Peter Tierney, president of Millennium Optical Networks. "To support requirements for high-speed transport services throughout Manhattan necessitated that we have a scalable, optical networking solution that would provide monitoring and control, as well as a cost-effective platform to deliver highly available services. Sycamore's approach enables us to offer carriers OC-48 connections quickly with the intelligence built into the system we need to support our customers."