Nortel Participates in Global Interoperability Test at GMI 2008, Helps Service Providers Leverage the Power of the Web

Innovative Nortel and Camiant Technology Used in Multi-Vendor Test Scenarios Across Three Continents

TORONTO – Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT ] is helping to pave the way for operators to smoothly introduce the next-generation of business and consumer services by participating in global, multi-vendor interoperability testing at this year’s Global MultiService Interoperability (GMI) Event .**

From October 20 to 31, major service providers from North America, the UK and China are participating in the event. The event is testing real-world, multi-vendor network scenarios to help support operators in quicker, simpler deployments of innovative technology like IMS, IPTV, web services and location management. GMI 2008 is sponsored by the MultiService Forum (MSF) ** and held at five labs globally, including the Verizon ** host site in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Throughout the event, Nortel is participating in test scenarios using the Agile Communication Environment (ACE) in the Verizon test lab which is connected to other major carrier labs including, BT ,** Vodafone ** and China Mobile .** Available globally since August 2008, ACE leverages Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and web services technology to extend unified communications to business applications to enable new ways of doing business by helping carriers reduce the cost and development time of today’s most sought after applications like social networking communications.

At the event, service provider labs are linked to create a global ecosystem for testing IPTV, Quality of Service (QoS), SOA and IMS technologies from a variety of vendors. Using this ecosystem, Nortel is participating in demonstrations using ACE to show how communications capabilities such as presence, location, instant message and click-to-connect can easily interact with other applications within an IMS architecture. For example, ACE can enable users to initiate voice calls simply by clicking on a name in a directory.

In addition to the ACE demonstrations, Nortel is leveraging its relationship with Camiant ,** a leader in policy control solutions, to demonstrate QoS for VoIP by managing the bandwidth, call clarity and delay essential to providing users a seamless, high-quality end-to-end experience. The test environments for both ACE and the Camiant demonstrations are realistic network deployment scenarios that mirror what carriers may have to work with in their actual networks.

"At a time when global interoperability and open standards are of the utmost importance for the growth of service provider networks, Nortel is committed to testing with carriers and other vendors to drive the advancement of communications technology" said Jim McEachern, Carrier VoIP Standards Strategy, Nortel and vice president of the MSF Board of Directors.

"Nortel has long been committed to open standards and as one of the founding members of the MSF we believe that events like GMI 2008 are key to promoting network focus on system and service compatibility" McEachern said. "Through our participation in GMI 2008, we’re helping to test the interoperability of a range of services and networks with the goal of helping carriers overcome the challenges of deploying innovative communications-enabled applications in multi-vendor networks. In doing so, Nortel is proving our commitment to helping service providers evolve their networks, drive revenue opportunities and truly leverage the power of the web for new applications"

Nortel’s ACE is a cross-domain (carrier and enterprise), multi-vendor web-service solution which allows service providers to offer their enterprise and residential customers interactive multimedia communication tools and solutions for their websites based on functionalities such as instant messaging, click-to-call, videoconferencing or presence to name a few.

Nortel’s ACE provides full flexibility in the way service providers can benefit from SOA-based web services with the web services enablement on the SIP Application Server (AS) 5200 , Communication Server (CS) 2000 , as well as the new Adaptive Application Engine (A2E) software, to deliver next generation SIP applications. The Adaptive Application Engine is a single software solution that brings together services across wireless broadband, wireline and cable access networks in ways that help service providers simplify their networks and enhance the communication experience for subscribers.

To demonstrate session control and QoS, Nortel is using Camiant’s Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE) on an IMS infrastructure. Camiant’s MPE is fully compliant with 3GPP’s*** Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) specifications and is an intelligent platform that helps operators determine which customers, tiers and/or applications receive bandwidth priority, at what charge, and how much they may use.

Nortel also provided the Secure Router 4134 for use at each of the GMI host sites in order to provide secure voice and data VPN connectivity between all sites.

For more information on Nortel’s SOA and Web Services for service providers, check out the Nortel podcast .

According to Dell’ Oro Group, Nortel is the worldwide leader in Carrier VoIP and has been for six years running (2002-2007).

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 www.nortel.com/news .

About Camiant

Camiant’s policy control solution empowers broadband service providers to open their networks and deliver a significantly higher quality of service to subscribers by guaranteeing superior performance of rich, high-bandwidth services. Leveraging its deep expertise in policy management and application assurance, Camiant seamlessly enables broadband service providers to deliver high performing user experiences as new, innovative multimedia services continue to enter the market with increasing unpredictability. Camiant’s market-leading policy control software platform is the solution of choice for service providers who want to reduce OPEX and CAPEX, increase ARPU and reduce churn by improving the user experience. By delivering predictable performance of new multimedia applications, Camiant has become the trusted source for delivering policy control and application assurance to service providers globally. For more information, visit http://www.camiant.com .**

About the MSF

The MultiService Forum is a global association of service providers and system suppliers committed to developing and promoting open architecture, multiservice networks Founded in 1998, the MSF is an open membership organization comprised of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. The MSF’s activities include developing Implementation Agreements, promoting worldwide compatibility and interoperability, and encouraging input to appropriate national and international standards bodies. For more information about the MSF and its members, visit the MSF web site at http://www.msforum.org/ .**

About GMI 2008

GMI 2008 - the Global MSF Interoperability event - will link major carrier, government, and academic labs on three continents in a major demonstration of multi-vendor interoperability between a significant number of NGN elements supporting Implementation Agreements developed in support of the MSF Release 4 Architecture and practical deployment scenarios of interest to major carriers. GMI 2008 will be held from October 20 – 31, 2008. http://www.msforum.org/interoperability/GMI.shtml .**

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 from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports 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.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
**This is a 3rd party link as described in our Web linking practices.
***3GPP is a registered trademark of European Telecommunications Standards Institute.