Nortel 40G Solution Achieves JITC Certification from U.S. Department of Defense

Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 First and Currently Only 40G Certified Platform

WASHINGTON - Nortel Government Solutions (NGS), a U.S. company wholly owned by Nortel* [TSX: NT | OTC: NRTLQ], announced today that Nortel’s Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 has become the first 40G optical solution to achieve approved product listing status from the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC).

Interoperability testing was conducted by the JITC at the Global Information Grid Network Test Facility in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Receipt of JITC certification allows Nortel’s OME 6500 optical networking platform, which can increase network capacity four-fold to 40Gbps per wavelength, to be procured and deployed by Department of Defense Agencies. Intelligence and civilian agencies can now reference the JITC’s stringent information assurance and interoperability testing as part of their own procurement process.

“Being the first JITC-certified 40G solution is a great achievement, and highlights the innovation from Nortel labs,” said Chuck Saffell , chief executive officer, Nortel Government Solutions. “JITC provides the most rigorous product testing in the industry, which ensures that our solution provides the performance, security, resiliency and ease of operation necessary for the most mission-critical military deployments.”

Nortel’s OME 6500 is a packet optical convergence platform that enables efficient aggregation, switching, transport and management of network traffic for a wide range of in-demand communications services. The solution converges multiple network layers to enable agencies to support circuit-based TDM private lines, optical services, packet transport, and transparent wavelength services - all on a single, compact platform. Government agencies can use this solution to streamline their networks and more efficiently deliver a rich variety of communications applications with substantially reduced infrastructure costs.

For multiservice nodal consolidation applications in large incumbent operators with either SDH or SONET networks, the OME 6500 has been demonstrated to provide up to 40% capital and operational savings over competing next-generation solutions. When compared against traditional networking solutions the OME 6500-based solution delivers even greater savings projections of up to 53% capital savings, 66% space savings and 75% power savings.

In addition to providing both cost efficiency and power conservation, the OME 6500 with the 40G/100G Adaptive Optical Engine is scalable and flexible. Presently certified by the JITC for 40G services, agencies’ investments are protected as the solution has been engineered to easily scale up to 100G to easily accommodate growing bandwidth needs. This single platform can be used for ROADM-based wavelength switching, while also capable of delivering services ranging from low-speed electrical DS1/DS3 to high-speed 40G optical interfaces, as well as Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet.