CASE STUDY
Ciena is a global and a diversified company
used to deal with mission critical traffic.
Therefore, on a business perspective, we
leverage our resources to facilitate Batelco
extending its international market by providing
the underlying packet optical technology for
the Batelco Global Network (BGN).
This partnership has the main goal of
ensuring scalability and reliability of our
network platforms which is paramount for a
successful project.
Can you explain the nature of your
partnership with Batelco?
Batelco has selected Ciena’s Converged
Packet Optical Platform as the foundation
for the Batelco Global Network (BGN). The
BGN runs over a state-of-the-art optical
transport network (OTN) to meet the
demand for reliable and cost-effective high
bandwidth connectivity and capacity for
Batelco customers and international carriers’
wholesale needs.
Today, we are seeing an increasing
bandwidth growth backed by the need for
high quality software control and agile
connectivity. Businesses rely on their network
24/7 and they are looking for an always-on,
responsive and high-quality experience.
In addition, we also see a strong trend in
telcos towards the adoption of Adaptive
Network, which is a new approach that
expands on autonomous networking
concepts to transform the static network
into a dynamic, programmable environment
driven by analytics and intelligence. This is a
network that can grow with a company as its
business needs and markets change.
BUSINESSES RELY ON THEIR NETWORK
24/7 AND THEY ARE LOOKING FOR AN
ALWAYS-ON, RESPONSIVE AND HIGH-
QUALITY EXPERIENCE.
connects UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, KSA, Kuwait
and beyond. more and more people to join our thriving
digital economy.
How long did the project take to
implement and were there any
particular challenges that needed to
be overcome? How successfully does the optical
transport network (OTN) meet
Batelco’s demand for reliable and
cost-effective high bandwidth
connectivity and capacity?
The project was completed in a record time
and is live now carrying mission critical traffic
for Batelco customers.
Since Batelco needs and their customers’
needs are constantly changing, the network
is designed in a way to support these needs
with minimal disruption.
Do you have any similar projects
planned for the region?
Yes. We have similar projects in the region.
Like many other parts of the world, the
Middle East region has embraced the impact
of digitisation and service providers are
taking steps to create more reliable and
adaptive networks that can cater to user
demands for higher bandwidth services.
Ciena’s aim is to work with service providers
in the region to enable a better-connected
society; while creating opportunities for
OTN is a next-generation, industry-standard
protocol that provides an efficient and
globally accepted way to multiplex different
services onto optical light paths.
To meet Batelco’s requirements, we
understand it is paramount to quickly evolve to
deal with an explosion of digital traffic driven
by multimedia services, mobile applications,
social media, VoIP and cloud computing.
Today, most network traffic is packet-based,
generated by a multitude of services and
applications in bursty, unpredictable traffic
patterns, with widely varying and more
stringent demands on bandwidth and data
transmission performance.
Thus, OTN wraps each client payload
transparently into a container for transport
across optical networks, preserving the
client’s native structure, timing information
We are thrilled to have partnered with
Batelco, as the backbone of BGN answers
the growing demand of high-speed and
low-latency connectivity solutions of the
customers in Bahrain.
Can you explain how the project
can ensure reliable connectivity to
Batelco and its customers?
The BGN supports high bandwidths in
order to meet the demand for reliable and
cost-effective connectivity and capacity for
Batelco customers and international carriers’
wholesale needs. The BGN cable system
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