NAUTEL and Lucent Digital Radio Announce Joint Testing of Lucent's IBOC AM Broadcasting System.

HACKETT'S COVE, Nova Scotia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 1999--

Nautel Limited, a world leader in development and manufacture of solid state radio transmission equipment, and Lucent Digital Radio, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lucent Technologies, Inc., today announced an agreement to co-operate in implementing both laboratory and field testing of transmitter technology to facilitate In-Band-On-Channel (IBOC) Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).

The two companies will jointly conduct laboratory testing at Nautel's research and development facilities using Lucent Digital Radio's prototype waveform generator. Plans are also underway for real world field testing at commercially operating AM stations in the United States.

David Grace, President and CEO of Nautel, stated, "Nautel encourages all IBOC proponents to formulate agreement for a single national system. This will encourage the development of compatible equipment and facilitate the rapid adoption of IBOC DAB. The potential benefits of IBOC implementation for AM radio are enormous in terms of competitive audio quality. We are excited about the agreement with Lucent and the opportunity to contribute to the future of radio. In the absence of a single IBOC standard, Nautel is committed to producing transmitters compatible with the various systems, thereby, protecting our broadcast customers' transmitter investment."

Nautel has a long standing commitment to radio broadcasting and operates a wholly owned subsidiary manufacturing facility, Nautel Maine, Inc., in Bangor, Maine, dedicated to serving the US broadcasting community.

"This agreement will help us to bring Lucent Digital Radio's IBOC technology to the market," said Suren Pai, President of Lucent Digital Radio. "Nautel is a premier transmission equipment manufacturer, and we are pleased to be working with them on testing our IBOC system."

This is probably the most significant advance in AM radio broadcasting since Nautel introduced the first FET technology all solid state 10kW AM transmitter in 1982, followed by 50kW in 1985. Nautel's new XL series transmitters have been specifically designed to help facilitate digital transmission formats presently under development for use in existing AM channels. The Nautel interphase Pulse Duration Modulator employs an ultra linear extended band filter which maintains constant group delay beyond 20 kHz. A special circuit optimizes IPM to ensure minimal phase error. This contributes to superior signal-to-noise ratio when transmitting a digitally encoded signal using quadrature modulation techniques such as IBOC DAB.

Lucent Digital Radio is a Lucent Technologies venture with a mission to develop IBOC DAB technology for AM and FM broadcasting worldwide. LDR's IBOC system will be resistant to multipath and other forms of interference that impair current analog transmissions.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit the company's web site at www.lucent.com.

Nautel specializes in high power, totally solid-state RF equipment operating in LF through VHF frequency bands. Nautel's product range includes: broadcast transmitters, AM and FM; aeronautical non-directional beacons; MF telegraph transmitters for operator telegraphy and NAVTEX; differential GSP transmitters; LF/MF antenna tuning units; and high power RF generators for dielectric heating. Since 1969, customers have put in the field over 4,500 of Nautel's totally solid-state transmitters in more than 160 countries with environments ranging from arctic to desert to tropical jungle in every continent of the world.