Nextlink Communications Inc. (Mclean, VA) and Ciena Corp. (Linthicum, MD) have signed a five-year contract, with an initial phase worth an estimated $120 million, for deploying Ciena's LightWorks optical networking solutions to light Nextlink's 16,000-mile, intercity, fiberoptic network. Nextlink also announced that the first segments of the network, connecting Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, are now operational.