Nortel Strengthens PBT-Enabled Carrier Ethernet Solution


NEW CAPABILITIES FOCUS ON SERVING RESIDENTIAL MARKETS

DECEMBER 11, 2007

TORONTO - According to recent studies, user demands on the Internet could outpace network capacity within two years, causing brownouts and slowing Internet speeds to a frustrating crawl. To address this looming bandwidth shortage, Nortel [NYSE/TSX: NT] is enhancing its Carrier Ethernet portfolio, bringing more powerful resources to its PBT technologies with enhanced products that meet carrier demand for greater bandwidth capacity and flexibility to deliver the needed bandwidth. In addition, new capabilities allow Nortel's PBT solution to carry "triple-play" services, including voice, Internet and TV programming for residential customers, increasing revenue opportunities for carriers.

"The rise in bandwidth-intensive applications and web sites like YouTube** has the potential to create a significant shortfall in available bandwidth," said Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder, Infonetics Research. "PBT technologies can help address this issue with its ability to control bandwidth in the network. Over the past year, the attraction of PBT has resulted in significant industry interest, and now customer pick-up is beginning. Nortel continues to develop its technology with enhancements that broaden its appeal, giving it new capabilities and extending its applicability to the residential market. This is a necessary next-step as PBT-enabled carrier Ethernet matures and gains share in the marketplace."

In addition to the evolution of PBT technologies, Nortel also announced customer momentum today in a companion announcement: Nortel's PBT Powers Carriers to Deliver High-Bandwidth Services Like Video.

"The exponential growth in Internet traffic coupled with the trend of Hyperconnectivity, in which every device that should be connected to the network, will be connected to the network, could seriously impact the user experience on the Internet in the near future," said Philippe Morin, president, Metro Ethernet Networks, Nortel.

"The ability to control and maximize bandwidth resources is a critical part of the solution - and that is PBT's forte. Nortel is committed to innovation and to the continued evolution of PBT as a game-changing technology that outpaces our competitors now and well into the future. Our latest product evolution brings the simplicity and cost savings of PBT-enabled carrier Ethernet to deployments in the residential market. We have advanced this solution based on specific customer input and are introducing new capabilities within new products to meet their needs."

PBT, or Provider Backbone Transport, allows carriers an alternative to current, expensive technologies by using Ethernet to simplify network operations. Ethernet** has been in broad use as a networking protocol for 30 years for enterprises to share information, making it well-known and extremely affordable, but it is the intelligence from PBT that makes Ethernet viable for very large-scale networks. PBT creates paths that carry streams of data through the network across the most efficient routes. This is critical for video, streaming music, VoIP and other traffic that degrades in quality from even the slightest delays within the network.

The Metro Ethernet Routing Switch 8600, Nortel's delivery vehicle for PBT technology, is being improved to provide greater flexibility for carriers:
o New processors will enable better performance and the ability to accommodate new services and advanced networking traffic management, resulting in improved efficiency and the ability to deliver services like video to a greater number of users.
o New module options for the MERS 8600 allow carriers flexibility for wider deployment scenarios, allowing carriers to tailor deployments to their precise requirements.

Also, the company is introducing two new additions to the Metro Ethernet Service Units 1800 portfolio, the Metro ESU 1880 and the Metro ESU 1860, which feature:
o Enhanced capabilities optimized to provide flexible options for the delivery of business services to enterprises and triple-play services for residential customers.
o Aggregation capabilities that provide new deployment options, and capacity that enables hundreds of thousands users to be served cost effectively.
The new products are fully integrated with Nortel's Metro Ethernet Manager (MEM), which works with PBT to simplify network operations and to provide greater network control over Nortel's Carrier Ethernet solution. MEM delivers network management capabilities that allow providers to maintain their current operations model and quickly establish and manage new services.

o New feature enhancements, available now, allow providers to view and troubleshoot from a network as well as a service perspective. This is critical to assuring services are "always on", isolating and resolving any events that impact the network before customers are affected.
The enhanced MERS8600 and new Metro ESU 1800 products will be available in Q1 2008.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit nortel.com/news.

**This is a 3rd party link as described in our Web linking practices.

Contacts for Press and Analysts:
Pat Cooper
425-450-7523
pat.cooper@nortel.com

Greta Brown
+44-1268-432968
gretab@nortel.com

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