Nortel Gains Two Pacts In China

Nortel Networks said it has signed two separate pacts for optical networking in China.

First, Nortel said China Unicom has selected it to provide Optical Metro network services in Beijing and in nine eastern and central provinces in the People’s Republic of China, under a series of agreements estimated to be worth approximately $18 million.

Under these agreements, Nortel Networks will supply Optical Ethernet services and multiservice backbone networks that will position China Unicom to address growing demand for data, voice and IP services in these regions, which represent more than 50 percent of China’s gross domestic product and nearly 48 percent (619 million people) of its population.

The agreements provide for an Optical Ethernet solution for Jiangsu province, and multiservice ATM backbones for Beijing and for the provinces of Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hebei, Anhui, Shandong and Sichuan.

China Unicom’s new networks are also expected to help meet the communications needs of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Also, Nortel said that selected to supply new, high-speed optical transmission backbone networks for Hubei Telecom, China Telecom’s subsidiary in Hubei province.

Nortel Networks will provide Hubei Telecom with two backbone networks. One is expected to serve the “Optical Valley” of China, including the capital city of Wuhan and the province’s rural areas, beginning in November. The other is expected to span the province to serve 13 cities and countryside towns across 1,100 kilometers beginning in January 2002.

Both new Hubei Telecom optical backbone networks will be based on Nortel Networks OPTera Long Haul 1600 Optical Line System, featuring 10 gigabits-per-second DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) line technology and using global standards such as SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy).

Nortel, which has nearly 30 years of experience in China, said it has won contracts estimated to be worth more than US$1.2 billion since the start of 200. Nortel also said it is investing in China to deliver key next generation networking solutions, and its comprehensive R&D facilities in Beijing will play an important role in developing new technologies.