N@N

Nortel: Virgin Media Deploys Nortel 40G Submarine Solution for Irish Undersea Link

^{Published on 2009-09-14 01:27:24 - Market Wire}
 

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwire - Sept. 14, 2009) - Virgin Media, the UK's leading entertainment and communications company, has enhanced the capacity in its existing submarine cable link between the UK mainland and Ireland using a next-generation optical solution from Nortel(1) (OTCBB:NRTLQ).

The 40Gbit/s submarine enhancement, follows Nortel's successful deployment of 40Gbit/s technology in Virgin Media's network, and will support the roll out of superfast broadband services across the UK. The terrestrial and submarine portions of the network have been upgraded to quadruple network capacity with minimal disruption.

Virgin Media operates a north and south optical fibre cable between the UK and Ireland underneath the Irish Sea. This cable already carries 10Gbit/s channels. The upgraded terrestrial and undersea cable network links Lytham St. Annes on the west coast of the UK to Dublin and covers approximately 238 kilometers.

The system upgrade extends the life of Virgin Media's cable infrastructure investment, as well as providing additional bandwidth. It also provides Virgin Media a potential future migration path to upgrade its submarine link to 100Gbit/s to accommodate the growing popularity and take up of multimedia services.

"The Nortel 40G Adaptive Optical Engine solution enables the upgrade of existing optical networks without the need for extensive network re-engineering or massive recabling costs," said Peter Newcombe leader, Metro Ethernet Networks Sales, Nortel, EMEA. "This was important on the Virgin Media project because their link is 238km long and most of it is undersea. It's also an advantage on the busy undersea routes to Ireland."

The upgraded network spans the terrestrial and submarine distances and can carry up to 12 x 40Gbit/s wavelengths, providing up to 480Gbit/s of capacity over a fibre loss of up to 58dB in this deployment over the unrepeatered wet plant. Unrepeatered submarine solutions provide significant capital and operating savings and are also a cost-effective alternative to terrestrial builds in coastal regions.

The end-to-end unrepeatered submarine solution was delivered by Nortel in conjunction with partner MPB Communications, which provided the high-power RAMAN amplification equipment needed to achieve network reach without undersea repeaters. The Nortel [ 40Gbit/s Adaptive Optical Engine ] includes simple plug-in interfaces for Nortel's flagship [ Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 ] converged packet optical platform.

About Nortel (in Administration)

Nortel was placed into Administration on 14 January 2009. The Company is engaged in the orderly sale of our businesses. The value of Nortel's innovation platforms and the employees behind them is well-known throughout the industry, and we are optimistic about discussions we are having with potential buyers for our other businesses. Nortel is confident that the products and services it supplies will continue to be supported without impacting customers for the foreseeable future. Ernst & Young are the joint administrators of Nortel.

Nortel delivers 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. 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.

Use of the terms "partner" and "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party.