2009-05-19 12:23:04 -

London, May , 19, 2009

Virtual Services Platform 9000 Delivers Industry-Leading Business
Agility

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - May 19, 2009) - Nortel(1) (TSX:
NT)(OTCBB: NRTLQ) today introduced the Virtual Services Platform
(VSP) 9000 - the next-generation enterprise solution for
mission-critical core networks and data centers. The new platform
helps companies realize the benefits of emerging virtualization
technologies that require unparalleled reliability and flexibility,
while providing over twice the performance compared to the primary
competition.(2)

The VSP 9000 enables simplified network virtualization, positions
companies to reduce capital and operating expenses, and provides a
more energy efficient network solution that can deliver further
savings from lower power usage. It is also designed to be
future-proof by providing an architecture designed for technical
longevity well beyond the typical lifespan of current solutions.

VSP 9000 also delivers carrier-grade reliability to ensure
uninterrupted business services based on its ability to repair
communication paths in milliseconds, a fraction of the time it takes
for competitive solutions to recover. This represents unprecedented
fail-over capabilities that are an improvement over Nortel's existing
lead that are third-party proven to provide at least seven times the
resiliency(3) over competitive solutions.

Aftenposten is the largest newspaper in Norway and its IT department
also provides network operations for nearly 30 other companies of all
sizes, including five of the top fifteen internet sites in Norway,
and the largest internet classifieds site in the Nordics. "Cost, as
measured in total cost of ownership, is a critical driver. As a large
company with international operations, our customers depend on us and
any network downtime is completely unacceptable. Our assessment of
Nortel's VSP 9000 shows it provides flexibility, simplicity of
operation, security and incredible performance," said Tor Fleime,
Manager Aftenposten IT. "The solution promises enhanced scalability
and carrier grade reliability to meet our increasing needs and future
expectations."

"Business continuity, network flexibility and cost reduction are the
top factors that enterprises identify as their most prevalent
concerns today," said Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions,
Nortel. "Businesses are taxed with the increased network capacity
requirements of today - and more importantly, anticipating tomorrow's
demands - especially as they embrace unified communications. Given
the current state of diminished IT resources and skyrocketing network
demands, the new VSP 9000 can give businesses a competitive advantage
from a networking standpoint."

Concord Hospital is a regional medical center that provides
comprehensive acute-care services and healthcare programs to patients
throughout New Hampshire. "As a medical care facility, I cannot
stress the importance of communications. We trust Nortel to deliver
on that," said Mark Starry, enterprise architect, Infrastructure and
Security Information Technology Services, Capital Region
HealthCare/Concord Hospital. "With close to 10,000 network devices,
our core network is based on Nortel 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology
and our Nortel wireless network supports over 400 access points to
serve our mobile staff. Nortel's VSP 9000 promises enhanced
scalability and carrier grade resiliency that will simplify our
multi-tier network. We look forward to migrating to the
next-generation core network platform."

Nortel has partnered with VMware to provide network infrastructure
that maximizes the performance, availability and resilience of their
industry-leading server virtualization solution. "We are glad to see
Nortel working to complement the industry-leading VMware platform
with a solution like VSP 9000, which is aimed at improving uptime,
availability and mobility of applications running on VMware
vSphere(TM) 4, the first operating system for building the internal
cloud," said Shekar Ayyar, vice president, infrastructure alliances,
VMware. "Nortel's solution can help customers accelerate their
virtualization adoption as they move toward cloud computing to
achieve greater efficiency, control and choice in their datacenters."

The VSP 9000 is designed to deliver a future-proof, ultra-reliable
network that provides agile, virtual network services. The VSP 9000
supports up to 720 10GE port density per rack, supporting up to 720
10Gbps Ethernet ports per rack and up to 27Tbps switching capacity in
a single chassis, or over 100Tbps in a quad Switch Cluster.(4)

Nortel will be demonstrating the new VSP 9000 at the Interop 2009
Trade Show in Las Vegas, May 18-21. The VSP 9000 is currently a
finalist for Interop's Best in Show award.

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 from those
contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional
information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see
Nortel's Annual Report on Form10-K, 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.

(2) The performance comparison is based upon Nortel's model VSP 9000
product which achieves throughput of 970 Mpps through ten output
slots, in comparison to Cisco's model 7010 product which achieves
throughput of 480 Mpps through eight output slots, as reported on the
product data sheet on Cisco's publicly available website. The
performance comparison is based upon Nortel's model VSP 9000 product
which achieves throughput of 1,700 Mpps through ten output slots per
chassis running in network high availability mode using Nortel's
Switch Clustering feature for both Layer 2 and/or Layer 3 traffic
flows, in comparison to Juniper's model EX 8208 product in high
availability mode which achieves throughput of 970 Mpps and does not
have a feature similar to Nortel's Switch Clustering , but rather
depends on Layer 3 protocols such as OSPF with ECMP to load balance
only Layer 3 IP traffic flows, as reported on the product data sheet
on Juniper's publicly available website.

(3) The Tolly Group Report Number 208298, July 2008, reported the
results of a power consumption evaluation of six Nortel converged
data network products consisting of large and medium core and wiring
closet Ethernet Routing Switches (ERS), enterprise branch office
routers, and IP phones compared to similar Cisco products on the
basis of power consumption and heat dissipation, and five-year
operational cost. See also The Tolly Group Report Number 208275,
January 2008, and Info-Tech Research Group Report (January 30, 2008).

(4) The rack density comparison is based upon Nortel's model VSP 9000
product which provides three 240 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet port systems
per rack (total of 720 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports per rack); in
comparison to Cisco's model 7010 which provides two 256 x 10 Gigabit
Ethernet port systems per rack (total of 512 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet
ports per rack) and Juniper's model EX 8208 which provides three 64 x
10 Gigabit Ethernet port systems per rack (total of 192 x 10 Gigabit
Ethernet ports per rack), as reported on the product data sheets on
Cisco's and Juniper's publicly available websites.

Use of the terms "partner" and "partnership" does not imply a legal
partnership between Nortel and any other party.

Contacts:
Nortel
Pat Cooper
425-450-7523
pat.cooper@nortel.com

Nortel
Greta Brown
+44-(0)1628-432968
gretab@nortel.com
www.nortel.com


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