Ciena sets up Australian office to fill Nortel void

Ciena has used its purchase of parts of Nortel's metro ethernet networks business to set up shop in Australia and New Zealand.

The vendor, which makes optical switching and carrier Ethernet kit, said today its presence would consist of former Nortel workers.

It was currently negotiating real estate leases to bring them out of Nortel offices into Ciena-branded facilities.

Senior vice president of global field operations, Mike Aquino, declined to reveal how many staff Ciena had in A/NZ as a result of the acquisition or its local revenues.

"We're still sizing up this market place," he said.

"I think from now until the end of the year we'll be assessing what's in the market place and making selective hires for specific functions."

Aquino also claimed that Ciena's business plans in Australia wouldn't be impacted if the national broadband network was canned by the Coalition after the next federal election.

"I see a tremendous demand for bandwidth driven by new apps," Aquino said.

"Whoever satisfies that demand, whether from the public or private sector, I see demand.

"If the NBN doesn't get built I don't see that impacting on our business. I think we'll continue to see [bandwidth] growth in one way or another."