Nortel Brings Advanced IP Communications to Rural USA

SOUTH DAKOTA, THE UNITED STATES, Jan 22 (MARKET WIRE)
--
Roberts County Telephone(2), the local service provider for the rural
community of New Effington, South Dakota, is playing a part in the
transformation of the rural service provider business through their
recent work with Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(NYSE: NT) to achieve listing of the
Nortel Communication Server 1500 (CS1500) VoIP softswitch in the Rural
Utilities Service(2) (RUS) List of Materials. This government grant
program opens up financial assistance opportunities for hundreds of U.S.
rural operators to upgrade their networks to support high-quality
communications services like IPTV and VoIP.

Using Nortel's CS 1500 VoIP softswitch and acting as Nortel's official
trial site for the grant program, Roberts County Telephone and Nortel
completed the necessary trials to get the CS 1500 included in the RUS
List of Materials. This means that other rural American telephone
companies like Roberts County Telephone can apply for government grants
to help purchase Nortel's CS 1500 to upgrade legacy equipment to support
IP networks. The grant program, designed to bring advanced communications
like IPTV and VoIP services to rural areas, is funded by The Technical
Standards Committee "A" (Telecommunications) of RUS, a division of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. The grants cover expenditures such as
network enhancements, equipment and construction financing, and
assistance obtaining advanced networking equipment.

"Getting products RUS listed is no easy task, requiring extensive
documentation, technical presentations and more than six months of
service provider trials to ensure the product meets the extensive
criteria for inclusion in the RUS List of Materials," said Alf
Decardenas, general manager, Carrier Multimedia Networks, Nortel. "Rural
service providers need a solution that allows them to evolve their
existing network to VoIP to meet growing customer demand for converged
and multimedia services. With the help of Robert's County Telephone,
Nortel has achieved RUS listing of its market-leading VoIP technology
that will help rural service providers take advantage of the benefits of
IP-based communications while keeping their operational costs down."

So why would a rural service provider want Nortel's CS 1500? Plenty of
reasons, because these customers are often in remote, rural areas, the
cost of reaching the population with services like VoIP can be
restrictive. As the demand for advanced communications services continues
to grow in rural communities, service providers can take advantage of RUS
grants to upgrade their networks and seize the opportunities being driven
by Hyperconnectivity, a global trend where anything that can be connected
to the network, will be connected. Nortel's CS 1500, a next-generation IP
softswitch, is specifically designed for regional carriers because it
allows them to continue to support traditional voice services while also
being able to easily evolve to advanced IP-based communications like
personal conference bridges, new multimedia services like converged
click-to-call functionality over a PC and IPTV.

To address the special needs of the regional carrier market, Nortel's CS
1500 integrates with a service provider's existing TDM infrastructure,
allowing small operators in rural U.S. to upgrade their networks
cost-effectively. According to an internal Nortel business case, allowing
service providers to reuse existing DMS-10 line equipment and migrate to
VoIP at their own pace can help reduce their capital investment by up to
40 percent compared to full switch replacement.

Nortel's CS 1500 was launched in June 2007 and in just seven months the
company has sold 84 networks to 65 regional North American carriers.
Nortel's Carrier VoIP solutions are IMS-ready and have been designed to
provide for a simple evolution to IMS services. According to Dell-Oro
Group, Nortel is the worldwide leader in Carrier VoIP and has been for
six consecutive years (2002 through to the latest reported numbers in
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.

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.

(1)Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel
Networks.

(2)This is a 3rd party link as described in our Web linking practices.

Contacts:
Nortel
Miranda MacDonald
(905) 863-1098
Email: mirandam@nortel.com
Website: www.nortel.com

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