Nortel Program Helps Service Providers Speed Time to Market for New Video Applications

Open Video Services Platform Makes it Simple for Developers to Build Applications

ANAHEIM – A new video developer program from Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT ] helps third-party developers quickly create applications that help service providers meet growing demand for advanced video services like sharing media across multiple devices – computers, TV, mobile devices. Through the program, third-party developers can easily build new video applications using a toolkit of basic and advanced services on the Nortel Video Services Platform (VSP) 9500 , launched earlier this year.

Service providers, the main customer for third-party developers, are continually searching for new video applications. Market research*** shows that service providers who offer compelling new services quickly, are more likely to attract new subscribers and reduce churn in the current customer base. Nortel’s new video developer program makes it easier and faster for service providers broaden their service portfolios using third party applications.

“Consumer response to advanced TV features that focus on greater personalization indicate that operators constantly need to evolve features to meet this demand,” said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst with Parks Associates ,** a market research and consulting firm studying emerging consumer technologies. “Providing platforms and tools to create unique service offerings will allow operators to respond more quickly to consumer tastes and to lower the cost of development and introduction of these next must-have features.”

“Consumers want the latest and greatest services – such as interactive advertising, on-line yellow pages with click-to-call functionality and social networking tie-ins to popular TV shows – and they aren’t willing to wait for a service provider who is slow to offer them,” said Sameer Sheth, general manager, Video Solutions, Nortel. “With Nortel’s video developer program, which uses an open-standards based approach, service providers can implement new video applications in their network through third-party developers much faster and more cost-effectively because the process of developing and launching them becomes very simple.”

The Nortel VSP 9500 facilitates the rapid introduction of new services on a cable or IPTV network. In contrast to proprietary implementations, the VSP 9500 uses open interfaces based on web services enabling applications to be easily developed and deployed. The VSP 9500 platform is part of a larger Nortel corporate initiative to develop SOA -enabled software and services. Third-party application developers who subscribe to Nortel’s VSP Application Developer Program are able to access a variety of VSP 9500 development resources to quickly bring new video applications to market.

LVL Studio ,** a digital media design agency creating compelling interactive applications for the converging TV, Web, wired and wireless markets has joined the VSP 9500 Partner Program because they saw the benefit of integrating their applications with a wide variety of network infrastructure. “We see the VSP 9500 as being a key component for the deployment of convergence applications in the rapidly evolving telecom industry,” said Jean-François Gagnon, president and founder, at LVL Studio. “Nortel’s VSP Developer Program lets us deploy our applications on a variety of network types without the headaches that would normally accompany such deployments. This is the key advantage of the VSP.”

* Nortel also announced today that two additional partners have joined the program:
Mariner ** is one of the world’s largest independent IPTV consulting, system integration and application development houses, known for their customer focused applications in the IPTV service assurance and self-serve areas.
* Casero ** provides white-label, value-added services such as Personal Media Management which integrate with service provider wireless, broadband and IPTV offerings.

Further information on resources such as development licenses, software support, interface documentation, and user group meetings will become available to partners early in 2009.

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 .

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*** “IPTV: From Quadruple Play to Multiplay” by Parks Associates, 2007. Authors: Kurt Scherf and Harry Wang
Use of the terms “partner” and “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party.