'Survival of the Fastest' New 'Theory' of Wireless Internet Evolution, Nortel Networks' Debon Tells Yankee Group Mobile.Net Conference - Pascal Debon, pres, Wireless Solutions, Nortel Networks, wireless Internet services - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Nov 15, 1999

With apologies to Charles Darwin, Nortel Networks Thursday declared a new theory of evolution - for the Wireless Internet.

It's 'survival of the fastest' - not the 'fittest' - that will determine the winners and losers as the Wireless Internet evolves over the next few years, says Pascal Debon, president, Wireless Solutions, Nortel Networks.

"The Internet is not about hype or technology, it's about creating new value and profit fast - very fast," Debon told nearly 300 attendees in his keynote address to "Mobile.Net: The Next Generation of Wireless," the Yankee Group's seventh annual wireless/mobile conference, at stops in both Dallas and Silicon Valley.

Echoing comments by John Roth, president and chief executive officer, Nortel Networks at the company's annual financial analysts conference Wednesday in New York, Debon emphasized the advantages of being a "first mover" in the market for Wireless Internet services.

"We're not talking about the Internet you know today," Debon said. "We're driving the evolution to a profitable new Internet - a high-performance, highly-reliable engine for economic growth."

Debon cautioned operators not to get caught waiting for the new Internet to arrive. The most successful, he said, will be those who take the first steps now to implement the new Wireless Internet, which he described as highly reliable with significantly lower operating costs and an open, flexible services architecture.

Debon anticipates that use of both wireless and the Internet will eclipse traditional telephone service by the year 2003 with more than a billion users each. "We think wireless will quickly become the dominant method of access to the Internet and a major force in its ongoing growth," Debon said.

Characterizing the Wireless Internet as "the new El Dorado" (the fabled city of gold sought by 16th century Spanish conquistadors), Debon predicted significant new opportunities for wireless service providers in entertainment, e-commerce, mobile office and location-based services. "The 'net' generation will want Wireless Internet," Debon said. "It opens access to new subscribers and new services."

Nortel Networks' Wireless Internet architecture ranked number one in a comparison of major global manufacturers published earlier this year by the

Yankee Group. Based on this architecture, Nortel Networks has established a challenge goal to reduce the total cost to deliver a megabit of data over a wireless network from 37 cents to four cents within the next five years.

Nortel Networks is a global leader in telephony, data, wireless and wireline solutions for the Internet. The Company had 1998 revenues of US$17.6 billion and serves carrier, service provider and enterprise customers globally. Today, Nortel Networks is creating a high-performance Internet that is more reliable and faster than ever before. It is redefining the economics and quality of networking and the Internet through Unified Networks that promise a new era of collaboration, communications and commerce. FMI: www.nortelnetworks.com.