Nortel Solutions Take Education to New Levels Through Multimedia Access Anywhere, Anytime.

PHILADELPHIA -- Education Customers Benefit from Secure Distance Learning, Real-Time Collaboration, Web Curricula

Nortel (NYSE:NT) (TSX:NT) has completed new customer deployments that are providing advanced teaching tools like secure distance learning, wireless access, Web-based curricula and real-time online collaboration to students, faculty and staff at four North American educational institutions, the company announced at the 26th Annual National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in Philadelphia.

Nortel solutions are now a part of improving the way school systems conduct research, teach students and collaborate at the State University of New York (SUNY) Potsdam, Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) Catholic Schools, Saskatoon Public Schools, and the Calgary (Alberta) Board of Education.

"It is vital for education to have communications that are reliable, fast and secure without exception," said Dan Young, vice president, Global Industry Solutions, Nortel. "We are committed to helping customers overcome the challenges they might face when implementing innovative new ways to enhance research and education."

Nortel solutions for education are designed to enable IP (Internet Protocol) Multimedia capabilities like IP audio and video conferencing, Web-based document sharing, and secure instant messaging to engage students and improve the learning experience.

The SUNY Potsdam campus is one of 13 Colleges of Arts and Sciences that make up the world's largest multi-campus university. With more than 4,000 students on campus, student file sharing programs were creating problems for academic and administrative users, so SUNY Potsdam needed to segregate the dorm traffic from the main campus.

The University was also looking to upgrade the academic and administrative buildings with 10/100/Gigabits to the desktop and a multi-Gigabit backbone, including a major cable plant upgrade to the majority of the campus. SUNY Potsdam chose a Nortel solution including wireless local area networking (LAN), Ethernet Routing Switch 8600, and Ethernet Routing Switch 5510.

"Nortel's solution provided the ease of management, security and resiliency we were lacking in previous solutions," said Matthew Keller, enterprise systems analyst, SUNY Potsdam. "We were looking for improved mobility in academic environments, such as classrooms and labs, as well as more reliable, stable and fault-tolerant network service, including multi-path redundancy for disaster recovery -- all without drastically increasing the management complexity of the network. These capabilities allow us to position ourselves for differentiation as we build out future phases of our network."

With more than 15,000 students and 1,600 teaching, service and support staff, Saskatoon Catholic Schools needed to centralize management and consolidate platforms in order to reduce costs. Saskatoon Catholic Schools had previously launched Cyber School, a highly successful online alternative to conventional classroom learning, and wanted to take e-Learning concepts to the next level with a wider offering.

"In a short period of time, our Cyber School system grew from four online courses and 156 students to 19 online courses and 800 students," said Donald Lloyd, Ph.D., superintendent of Administrative Services, Saskatoon Catholic Schools. "We needed a future-proof solution that would allow us to fundamentally change the way education content is delivered while increasing productivity and lowering costs. Nortel's channel partner SaskTel worked with us to show that, by implementing Nortel solutions, our costs would be significantly reduced. We now have a resilient, robust network, enabling voice over IP and other productivity-enhancing multimedia applications."

Across town, the Saskatoon Public School Board concluded that a converged network could be used to deliver a suite of new applications designed to assist with increasing student success rates and preparing students for the digital economy. The Board chose a phased approach with Nortel to transition its network and applications to IP. This approach involved replacing existing TDM phones with IP phones, adding new IP phones, and introducing new applications like voice mail, wireless LAN, and security. Using virtual LANs from Nortel, Saskatoon Public Schools can now provide separate networks for phones, students, guests, administration, and cameras, providing significantly better visibility into the network.

"Being one of the largest school divisions in Saskatchewan, we needed a vendor with the depth and breadth of experience and solutions who is committed to our success," said Daryl Koroluk, general manager, Information Systems, Saskatoon Public Schools. "Nortel, along with their chosen implementation partner SaskTel, not only met these needs, but also provided the product functionality to take our students' learning experience to the next level. With Nortel solutions, we will be able to put a phone on each teacher's desk within two years and layer the new applications into the network."

The Calgary Board of Education chose a Nortel solution to upgrade its existing broadband network as the district moves to the next generation of technology-enabled learning. Calgary schools are heavily engaged in distributed and mobile learning and are now positioned for video conferencing and voice over IP. Critical elements of the upgrade included Gigabit Ethernet to 35,000 devices and wireless LAN capability to cover 12 million square feet within 235 schools.

"Nortel worked very closely with us to develop and deliver products to meet our priorities," said Cindy Seibel, director, Information Technology Services, Calgary Board of Education. "We will be evolving to voice over IP and will also have the flexibility to partner with smaller school boards in the delivery of shared services. Nortel made it clear they are committed to our success. In terms of future plans, we are looking to extend our wireless LANs for hot-spot access for visiting parents and off-hours access by the community using our facilities."

More than 10,000 education customers worldwide have installed communications solutions from Nortel, including the University of Connecticut, the University of Texas at Austin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Seoul (Korea) National University, Ohio State University, the University of Ulster (Ireland), Saga University, George Mason University, the University of Granada (Spain), The Open University of Israel, Israel's Center for Educational Technology, Bosphorus University (Turkey), Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Philadelphia Unified School System. Nortel provides IP multimedia solutions to customers of all sizes in all vertical industries, and is the only company to have deployed more than 50 million enterprise telephony lines and 50 million Ethernet ports.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world's most critical information. Serving both service provider and enterprise customers, Nortel delivers innovative technology solutions encompassing end-to-end broadband, Voice over IP, multimedia services and applications, and wireless broadband designed to help people solve the world's greatest challenges. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

Certain information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events.

Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the outcome of regulatory and criminal investigations and civil litigation actions related to Nortel's restatements and the impact any resulting legal judgments, settlements, penalties and expenses could have on Nortel's results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and any related potential dilution of Nortel's common shares; the findings of Nortel's independent review and implementation of recommended remedial measures; the outcome of the independent review with respect to revenues for specific identified transactions, which review will have a particular emphasis on the underlying conduct that led to the initial recognition of these revenues; the restatement or revisions of Nortel's previously announced or filed financial results and resulting negative publicity; the existence of material weaknesses in Nortel's internal control over financial reporting and the conclusion of Nortel's management and independent auditor that Nortel's internal control over financial reporting is ineffective, which could continue to impact Nortel's ability to report its results of operations and financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the impact of Nortel's and NNL's failure to timely file their financial statements and related periodic reports, including Nortel's inability to access its shelf registration statement filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); ongoing SEC reviews, which may result in changes to Nortel's and NNL's public filings; the impact of management changes, including the termination for cause of Nortel's former CEO, CFO and Controller in April 2004; the sufficiency of Nortel's restructuring activities, including the work plan announced on August 19, 2004 as updated on September 30, 2004 and December 14, 2004, including the potential for higher actual costs to be incurred in connection with restructuring actions compared to the estimated costs of such actions;

cautious or reduced spending by Nortel's customers; increased consolidation among Nortel's customers and the loss of customers in certain markets; fluctuations in Nortel's operating results and general industry, economic and market conditions and growth rates; fluctuations in Nortel's cash flow, level of outstanding debt and current debt ratings; Nortel's monitoring of the capital markets for opportunities to improve its capital structure and financial flexibility; Nortel's ability to recruit and retain qualified employees; the use of cash collateral to support Nortel's normal course business activities; the dependence on Nortel's subsidiaries for funding; the impact of Nortel's defined benefit plans and deferred tax assets on results of operations and Nortel's cash flow; the adverse resolution of class actions, litigation in the ordinary course of business, intellectual property disputes and similar matters; Nortel's dependence on new product development and its ability to predict market demand for particular products; Nortel's ability to integrate the operations and technologies of acquired businesses in an effective manner; the impact of rapid technological and market change; the impact of price and product competition; barriers to international growth and global economic conditions, particularly in emerging markets and including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of rationalization and consolidation in the telecommunications industry; changes in regulation of the Internet; the impact of the credit risks of Nortel's customers and the impact of customer financing and commitments; stock market volatility generally and as a result of acceleration of the settlement date of Nortel's forward purchase contracts; negative developments associated with Nortel's supply contracts and contract manufacturing agreements, including as a result of using a sole supplier for a key component of certain optical networks solutions; the impact of Nortel's supply and outsourcing contracts that contain delivery and installation provisions, which, if not met, could result in the payment of substantial penalties or liquidated damages; and the future success of Nortel's strategic alliances.

For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed by Nortel 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.

Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.

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