Nortel Focuses Municipal Wireless Investments, Partnerships to Accelerate Broadband Deployments

TORONTO, Canada, October 23 /PRNewswire/ --

- Driving Productivity and Efficiency for Municipal Operations, Increasing Public Safety and Fueling Economic Development

Nortel(x) (NYSE: NT; TSX: NT) is increasing investments in its Municipal Wireless Solution and services to help municipalities easily bring affordable broadband services to their citizens. This includes opening a municipal wireless lab, launching new promotions for its Municipal Wireless Solution and accelerating collaboration with some of the industry's leading applications vendors.

"We are committed to helping communities make wireless broadband services affordable and available to everyone," said Dietmar Wendt, president, Global Services, Nortel. "Nortel's Municipal Wireless Solution and simplified business models are helping customers maximise return on investment through improved productivity and efficiency of government operations, increased public safety and new economic growth. Municipal wireless is one of the key strategic areas that will help drive Nortel's business momentum and growth, and we plan to invest heavily in new resources that will help us lead this market."

Nortel combines a comprehensive portfolio of Wireless Mesh, Wireless LAN and WiMAX technologies with a full suite of Nortel Global Services, giving customers the solutions they need to design, deploy, support and evolve municipal wireless networks. Nortel's global experience designing, launching and installing hundreds of public and private wireless networks helps customers offset risk in building privately-funded networks. For municipalities interested in partnering with private sector companies, Nortel can help connect customers with operators that best meet the economic development and public safety needs of the community.

Nortel's dedicated municipal wireless lab is located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina and showcases the Company's entire Municipal Wireless Solution. The lab focuses on research and development of broadband wireless solutions that will allow municipalities and operators to realise simplified introduction of new wireless services and applications to boost economic development, improve public safety and give citizens easier access to government services. The lab also gives Nortel a collaborative environment in which to fully test and integrate an expansive ecosystem of partners to provide municipal applications.

Nortel is working with 121Media, Inc., Accela, Inc., Aptilo Networks, Blue Vector Systems, NetMotion Wireless, Pronto Networks and smarTVideo(TM) Technologies, Inc. to offer enhanced broadband wireless applications. These applications include in-vehicle communication services, automated meter reading, digital video surveillance, asset or fleet tracking and monitoring, subscriber management and access control and mobile television. In addition, Nortel's Municipal Wireless Solution leverages the Nortel Multimedia Communication Server 5100 to give customers access to a broad range of voice and collaboration tools such as instant messaging and video and audio conferencing.

"Through Nortel and NetMotion Wireless collaboration, police officers, firefighters, inspectors and other public safety employees will have the ability to securely and seamlessly roam while maintaining session persistence with mission-critical applications such as background checks or video surveillance," said John Knopf, director of product management, NetMotion Wireless. "For years, NetMotion Wireless' Mobility XE software has provided secure, remote access to the public safety market, enabling real-time access to information that keeps workers productive as they roam seamlessly across a variety of networks. Our expertise in this market paired with Nortel's strong presence in the municipal wireless space will allow many new customers to experience the power of our combined solutions."

To help municipalities and operators realise the benefits of broadband wireless services, Nortel is offering customers 'get started' wireless mesh kits in five and 10 wireless access point bundles. From hardware to installation, these cost-effective packages include everything a municipality needs to quickly deploy a full mesh environment.

Nortel's Municipal Wireless Solution is being used in the largest municipal wireless network in the world by the Taipei City government in Taipei, Taiwan and by Golden Telecom in Europe's largest wireless mesh network in Moscow, Russia. Golden Telecom is also conducting trials with Nortel's Mobile WiMAX solution.

From rural to urban deployments, Nortel's Municipal Wireless Solution is being used by governments and operators in multiple countries, including Ariel, an Israeli settlement located on the West Bank; Annapolis Wireless in Annapolis, Maryland; Bell Canada in the Township of Chapleau, Ontario; the City of Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Marshalltown, Iowa; Richardson, Texas; Simply Surf in Dunrobin, Ottawa and the Special Areas Board of Alberta, Canada.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognised leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world's most critical information. Our next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications, and help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people with information. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different. Further, actual results or events could differ materially from those contemplated in forward-looking statements as a result of the following (i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and related matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements and related events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal investigations of Nortel in the US and Canada; any significant pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel's proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash payment and/or significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity positions resulting from the finalisation and approval of its proposed class action settlement, or if such class action settlement is not finalised, any larger settlements or awards of damages in respect of such class actions; 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any negative effect of Nortel's failure to evolve adequately its financial and managerial control and reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its business, or create an effective risk management strategy; and (iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity, financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel capitalising on business opportunities because of credit facility covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt issues and the provisions of its credit facilities; any increase of restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal course business activities, or any inability of Nortel's subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks or inability of customers to fulfill payment obligations under customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel's ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further declines in the market price of Nortel's publicly traded securities, or any future share consolidation resulting in a lower total market capitalisation or adverse effect on the liquidity of Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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