Verizon Business Chooses Nortel Equipment For Pan-European Ultra-Long Haul Optical Network

LONDON – Starting in 2008, Verizon Business will be even better positioned to deliver network capacity across Europe for high-bandwidth applications like video and advanced business services with an optical network supported by Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] equipment. The equipment purchase supports 10G services as well as emerging 40G services and will allow Verizon** Business to deliver greater capacity to its large enterprise customers to meet their increasing bandwidth requirements.

The ultra long haul (ULH) optical network will carry a large portion of the Verizon Business European network traffic and will be deployed across multiple countries including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, the next-generation, ultra-long haul optical network allows Verizon Business to meet the growing bandwidth demand while simplifying network operations.

“Verizon Business has taken a bold, forward-looking approach to building out its network,” said Philippe Morin, president, Metro Ethernet Networks, Nortel. “It provides the ability to deliver the bandwidth capacity that service providers and businesses require today and the critical ability to evolve seamlessly to 40G when needed. Of course the true beneficiaries are the end-users who will be able to take advantage of future high-bandwidth services and applications to meet their growing business needs throughout Europe.”

Nortel Global Services is assisting with the deployment, providing turn-key installation services for Verizon Business and will include support for integration into existing management systems and Network Operation Center facilities.

The Verizon Business optical network is based on the Optical Multiservice Edge 6500, a next-generation optical convergence platform. The solution allows service providers to deliver high-growth, high-bandwidth broadband services with quickest time to revenue and one of the lowest deployment and operational costs. The solution also features Nortel’s unique electronic Dynamically Compensating Optics (eDCO), which simplifies networking by extending 40G wavelengths over thousands of kilometers without requiring dispersion compensation modules, greatly simplifying the network.

Verizon Business is also using the Common Photonic Layer (CPL) which enables the migration to a more agile, adaptive, all optical intelligent network. Also part of the solution, Nortel’s Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexing (ROADM) technology provides operational simplicity and network agility for the easy addition and routing of new services, resulting in a more cost-effective, reliable infrastructure. In addition, the Nortel Optical Network Manager will provide the required operations administration and management for the network, advanced network and service management and network planning tools for end-to-end wavelength layer management.