Wind Telecom Chooses Nortel To Deploy Wimax Network In Dominican Republic

SANTO DOMINGO – Wind Telecom, a new network operator in the Dominican Republic, and Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] have signed a Letter of Agreement expressing their firm commitment to deploy a wireless broadband network based on Nortel WiMAX technology. Wind Telecom intends to offer high-speed broadband services to urban and rural customers across the country.

The network is expected to be commercially available in September 2007 in the initial launch cities of Santo Domingo, Santiago, Puerto Plata and Bavaro/Punta Cana, with other areas such as La Romana, projected for the near future. Nationwide coverage will be reached incrementally over the next few years. The award of the contract is subject to the execution of a final, legally binding agreement.

Wind Telecom will use Nortel’s MIMO-powered WiMAX innovations to deliver services such as VoIP, video-streaming and mobile broadband, which are expected to help bridge the digital divide in the Dominican Republic where broadband services have been limited. Subscribers will be able to benefit from the wealth of information and economic advantages such as e-commerce that are accessible through the use of advanced technologies.

“Wind Telecom is striving to make affordable broadband services available to the mass market in the Dominican Republic, where the adoption of these services has been slow due to high prices, limited availability and insufficient competition. We will be a full service provider of voice, data, and video services,” said Manuel Bonilla, CEO, Wind Telecom. “Nortel’s WiMAX solution allows us to achieve the goal of affordable broadband for both business and individual consumers, without the complexities of building a wired network. This makes it especially well suited to historical cities like Santo Domingo where the inner-city is dense with buildings, as well as for sub-urban and rural services.”

“Wind Telecom firmly believes in the future of the Dominican Republic. The investment environment favors competition and innovation, allowing a greenfield operator with leading-edge disruptive technology to enter the market and become a prime competitor,” said Jose Clase, chairman of the board of Wind Telecom. “Our company has the unique opportunity of significantly contributing to the development of the Dominican Republic while at the same time creating a prosperous telecom business.”

“With this end-to-end solution, Wind Telecom will become one of the first wireless broadband operators in the Dominican Republic to support fixed, portable, and mobile services,” said Peter MacKinnon, general manager of WiMAX, Nortel. “With its high-bandwidth capabilities, minimal infrastructure requirements and one of the lowest costs per megabit in the industry, Nortel’s WiMAX solution will help Wind Telecom position itself as a premium network operator.”

The network will be an end-to-end solution for Wind Telecom, including consumer devices, mobile WiMAX base stations, ASN gateway, business support system (BSS) and operational support system (OSS) platforms as well as professional services such as training. All proposed base stations will be operating in the 2.5GHz frequency band. As well as supplying the equipment, Nortel is to be responsible for the deployment, support and maintenance of Wind Telecom’s entire network.

Nortel’s 4G WiMAX solution (standard 802.16e) delivers one of the highest performances in the smallest footprint with one of the most competitive costs per megabit in the industry. It is built on a foundation of OFDM-MIMO, a combination of innovative transmission and antenna technologies that maximizes spectrum to deliver the lightning-fast speeds and high bandwidth essential to high-quality mobile video and TV.

About Wind Telecom, S.A.
Wind Telecom is a company headquartered in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and it is fully funded by a group of Dominican and international investors. The company will deploy broadband networks to complement and compete in the telecommunications market of the Dominican Republic, with the technological support of Nortel. Wind Telecom owns 200 Mhz of spectrum in the 2.5 Ghz band and therefore has the capability to deploy a nationwide WiMAX network and become a significant contributor to the Dominican telecommunications community.

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.