Nortel Teams Up with GENBAND to Expand End-to-End Solutions for VoIP Migration

TORONTO – Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] with GENBAND, a leading supplier of IP media gateway and infrastructure products and solutions, will offer new solutions that allow regional North American voice carriers to migrate easily and cost-effectively to VoIP.
The Nortel solutions will enable seamless transition to VoIP for regional carriers while extending Nortel’s migration capabilities to DCO and EWSD switches – technologies widely installed in current carrier telephone systems. GENBAND’s media gateways, when paired with the Nortel Communication Server (CS) 1500 and CS 2000, enables users of these legacy TDM voice switches – serving millions of lines in North America – to migrate to Nortel VoIP at a significantly lower cost by reusing rather than replacing existing line equipment.
Nortel will resell, distribute and support both GENBAND’s G6 Universal Media Gateway and G2 Compact Media Gateway. These media gateways complement the existing capabilities of Nortel’s CS 1500 and CS 2000, which already migrate existing line equipment from both the Nortel DMS-100 and DMS-10.
“One of the fundamental building blocks in next-generation networks is migrating customers from legacy voice services to more advanced VoIP and SIP applications such as fixed mobile convergence,” said Akshay Sharma, research director, Gartner, Carrier Network Infrastructure. “Cost effective solutions for transformation to VoIP are essential for carriers to meet growing demands for the newest voice applications.”
“There are over 3,000 legacy voice nodes in the rural market today that can be directly upgraded to IP with the expanded Nortel solution, making this a valuable opportunity for carriers to cost-effectively and easily complete the move to an all-IP network,” said Alf Decardenas, general manager, Carrier Multimedia Networks, Nortel. “Without the Nortel-GENBAND solution customers would have to consider replacing existing lines at considerable capital and operating cost.”
“Our products, combined with Nortel’s superior VoIP solutions, will provide customers with IP-based services that enable increased revenue opportunities and reduced operational costs,” said Charles Vogt, president and chief executive officer, of Plano, Texas-based GENBAND. “With Nortel’s CS 1500 and CS 2000 solutions, our media gateways are exactly what service providers need to deploy best-in-class, next-generation networks.”
“New products that combine wireless, wireline and high-speed data can be more easily and cost effectively offered on an IP network,” said Jim Hansen, senior vice president of Network Services at EMBARQ, the fourth largest local exchange carrier in the U.S. with operations in 18 states. “The Nortel-GENBAND products will make it easier to upgrade networks to offer practical and innovative products and services to customers.”
Nortel is the worldwide leader in carrier VoIP, a leadership position it has held for five consecutive years (2002-2006) according to Dell’Oro Group.
Nortel’s Carrier VoIP solutions are IMS-ready and designed to provide a foundation for simple evolution to IMS. Last month at NXTComm in Chicago, Nortel announced that to date, they have received 15 orders from regional U.S carriers for the now generally available CS 1500. Support for GENBAND media gateways is expected to be available in North America in the fourth quarter of 2007 for the CS 1500 and in 2008 for the CS 2000 IP Multimedia Softswitch.

About GENBAND
GENBAND is a leading supplier of next generation IP gateway and application solutions. These high-performance gateway and application platforms enable fixed wireline, mobile, and cable network service providers to rapidly deploy new multimedia services. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, GENBAND has research and development facilities in Texas, China, and India.
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. 

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Jody Bennett
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jody.bennett@genband.com

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