Nortel Enhances Wireless LAN for Unified Communications, Launches New Security and Location Solutions
Creates New Advanced Wireless Application Opportunities for Customers
Feb. 26, 2007 03:08 PM
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/26/07 -- Nortel(1) (TSX: NT) (NYSE: NT)
today unveiled new wireless LAN (WLAN) capabilities and solutions
that enable business to use their existing WLAN network to deploy
advanced enterprise applications such as location tracking,
advanced security solutions, and voice over the WLAN network.
With new voice quality features based on IEEE 802.11e standards,
businesses now have greater flexibility when planning for voice
over WLAN as part of a unified communications solution.
Additionally, Nortel has launched two simple and cost-effective
upgrades to help increase the security of wireless LAN networks,
and help improve overall productivity by allowing businesses to
use the network to quickly locate people, company assets and
equipment that are dispersed across their campus.
"As more of our employees become connected to our wireless LAN
network, mobile PCs, notebooks and PDAs will increasingly be
relied on as voice devices," said Cary Houck, senior network
engineer, ProMedica Health System which serves northwest Ohio and
southeast Michigan in the United States. "By using the enterprise
wireless LAN to support high-quality voice calls, Nortel's WLAN
solution will help ensure the benefits of unified communications
can follow employees across our campus."
The new voice capabilities on the Nortel Wireless LAN 2300
Series will ensure that voice quality is maintained in the
presence of other wireless traffic and will allow customers to
optimize the performance of a wide variety of mobile devices that
will also be adopting the standard. This includes the new Nortel
WLAN Handset 6100 Series, planned for availability in 2Q07. These
premise-based WLAN handsets are planned to fully integrate with
Nortel's enterprise VoIP and WLAN platforms and provide the
flexibility of 802.11 a/b/g support.
The two new solutions introduced on the Nortel Wireless LAN 2300
platform allow businesses to layer new business applications over
their existing wireless LAN based on their unique requirements.
Nortel's new Asset Tracking and Management solution enables
businesses to use their WLAN network to provide real-time location
and tracking of up to 10,000 individual assets or people with a
location accuracy of one to three meters. The solution combines
the Nortel WLAN 2300 Series with Ekahau real-time location system,
enabling the use of RF tags that determine their location by
interacting with Nortel WLAN 2300 Series access points. This
eliminates the need to create a discrete network of RFID readers
used solely for asset tracking purposes, resulting in a faster,
simpler, and more cost-effective deployment.
Nortel's new Wireless Intrusion Detection and Prevention (WIPS)
solution gives customers an optional advanced WIPS security
upgrade. By allowing the enterprise to leverage their existing
Nortel WLAN infrastructure, Nortel eliminates the cost and
complexity of installing and managing a separate network of
security sensors. The solution uses WIPS technology from
AirDefense to allow Nortel WLAN customers to turn WLAN 2300 Series
access points into security sensors that can identify and protect
the enterprise network against over 230 different types of threats
that can target the wireless network. The solution also provides
security policy management and enforcement, and scales from a
single office to hundreds of locations.
"Nortel is creating valuable new applications that enterprises can
very easily deploy using their Nortel wireless LAN networks," said
Aziz Khadbai, general manager, Converged Data Networks, Nortel.
"Our work with AirDefense and Ekahau represents an infusion of
their best-of-breed technology to extend the functionality of our
enterprise mobility solutions with simple and economical advanced
wireless LAN applications."
AirDefense and Ekahau products have undergone rigorous testing,
integration and market-readiness processes to assure resellers and
customers of a seamless implementation with the WLAN 2300. The
complete solutions are available today through Nortel and Nortel's
value-added resellers and integrators.
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.
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. Further, actual results or events could
differ materially from those contemplated in forward-looking
statements as a result of the following
(i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and
related matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and
two previous restatements of its financial statements and related
events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent
restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and
related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or
settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other
penalties or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and
criminal investigations of Nortel in the U.S. and Canada; any
significant pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by
Nortel's proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash
payment and/or significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity
positions resulting from the approval of its proposed class action
settlement; any unsuccessful remediation of Nortel's material
weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulting
in an inability to report Nortel's results of operations and
financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the time
required to implement Nortel's remedial measures; Nortel's
inability to access, in its current form, its shelf registration
filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), and Nortel's below investment grade credit rating and any
further adverse effect on its credit rating due to Nortel's
restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect on
Nortel's business and market price of its publicly traded
securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to
Nortel's restatements; Nortel's potential inability to attract or
retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives;
any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the
NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension
or delisting procedures;
(ii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's business
including: yearly and quarterly fluctuations of Nortel's operating
results; reduced demand and pricing pressures for its products due
to global economic conditions, significant competition,
competitive pricing practice, cautious capital spending by
customers, increased industry consolidation, rapidly changing
technologies, evolving industry standards, frequent new product
introductions and short product life cycles, and other trends and
industry characteristics affecting the telecommunications
industry; the sufficiency of recently announced restructuring
actions, including the potential for higher actual costs to be
incurred in connection with these restructuring actions compared
to the estimated costs of such actions and the ability to achieve
the targeted cost savings and reductions of Nortel's unfunded
pension liability deficit; any material and adverse affects on
Nortel's performance if its expectations regarding market demand
for particular products prove to be wrong or because of certain
barriers in its efforts to expand internationally; any reduction
in Nortel's operating results and any related volatility in the
market price of its publicly traded securities arising from any
decline in its gross margin, or fluctuations in foreign currency
exchange rates; any negative developments associated with Nortel's
supply contract and contract manufacturing agreements including as
a result of using a sole supplier for key optical networking
solutions components, and any defects or errors in Nortel's
current or planned products; any negative impact to Nortel of its
failure to achieve its business transformation objective;
additional valuation allowances for all or a portion of its
deferred tax assets; Nortel's failure to protect its intellectual
property rights, or any adverse judgments or settlements arising
out of disputes regarding intellectual property; changes in
regulation of the Internet and/or other aspects of the industry;
Nortel's failure to successfully operate or integrate its
strategic acquisitions, or failure to consummate or succeed with
its strategic alliances; any negative effect of Nortel's failure
to evolve adequately its financial and managerial control and
reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its business, or
create an effective risk management strategy; and
(iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity,
financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of
Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of
its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash
flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve
its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional
sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel
capitalizing on business opportunities because of support facility
covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the
provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt
issues and the provisions of its support facility; any increase of
restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure
alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal
course business activities, or any inability of Nortel's
subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative
effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans
contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks
or inability of customers to fulfill payment obligations under
customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel's
ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and
retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further
declines in the market price of Nortel's publicly traded
securities, or the share consolidation resulting in a lower total
market capitalization or adverse effect on the liquidity of
Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to
certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on
Form10-K/A, 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.