Air Canada Chooses Zetron Voice Communications Consoles.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2002

Zetron, Inc. has been awarded a contract to supply Air Canada with a new Voice Communication Console system for the airline's flight dispatch and airport operations centers.

Zetron will install its Acom Advanced Communications System in seven Air Canada dispatch facilities located in four cities across Canada. By the time all the systems are installed and fully operational in the spring of 2003, the Acom system will allow 115 dispatchers and supervisors to manage all communications with the carrier's fleet of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and with its airport operations and aircraft maintenance centers.

Zetron will install Acom systems in Air Canada's System Operations Center in Toronto, its Flight Dispatch office in Calgary, and in airport Station Operation Centers located in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. An Acom console dispatch system will also be installed in the airline's Maintenance Operations Center located in Montreal. Zetron is working on the Air Canada project with ARINC of Annapolis, MD (www.arinc.com). ARINC owns, operates, and maintains communications, radio equipment, and associated network equipment in mission-critical environments such as aviation, rail, and public safety.

The Acom Advanced Communications System is Zetron's fully digital switching and multiplexing platform that represents the state-of-the-art in console dispatch technology for mission-critical communication centers. Acom's end-to-end digital architecture integrates voice (radio and telephone), data, paging, and video in a fully distributed switching environment. The dispatch systems being deployed for Air Canada will be running on a fiber optic backbone capable of supporting more than 1,500 non-blocking channels. The operator positions are fully digital from the desktop to the common control electronics. Each Air Canada operator will access the system through his or her Acom workstation, using LCD touchscreen monitors. The Acom workstation provides a fully configurable graphical user interface that allows operators to make and receive radio and telephone calls, patch and conference any resource, manage calling queues, send pages, and configure and control the system. The architecture of the Acom systems being deployed for Air Canada is fully redundant with hot standby, which insures the highest degree of resiliency and reliability.

Acom systems are installed in mission-critical dispatch centers worldwide, including public safety, aviation, utility, and transportation command headquarters. For more information on Acom, contact Charles (Lin) Lindsey, Acom Product Manager, at Zetron at 425/820-6363, extension 484, or send an e-mail to [e-mail].

Zetron is a leading manufacturer of mission-critical communications systems for public safety, paging, wireless telemetry, land mobile, and trunking applications. Through operations in Europe, Australia, and North America, Zetron markets its products and systems worldwide.

ARINC is the world leader in transportation communications and systems engineering. The company develops and operates communications and information processing systems and provides systems engineering and integration solutions to transportation, national defense, government and industrial customers. Founded to provide reliable and efficient radio communications for the airlines, ARINC is headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, with over 3,000 employees worldwide. ARINC is ISO 9000 certified.