Nortel Networks, Agilent Technologies to Simplify Optical Network Management

Business Wire, April 10, 2001

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

BOSTON & PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2001

Integrated Offering Expected to Lower Costs, Speed Provisioning

of Managed Optical Services

Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT)(TSE:NT.) and Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) have agreed to jointly develop and market a comprehensive solution for simplifying optical network management.

This solution, which will be designed to integrate physical fiber and logical network layers, will leverage the strengths of Nortel Networks Preside network management and Agilent accessFIBER to help service providers reduce operating costs, improve reliability, and simplify provisioning of bandwidth trading and other, dynamic mesh services.

"Market dynamics are driving demand for innovative solutions that will help service providers accelerate time to revenues and reduce operational costs," said Tom White, senior vice president and general manager, Communications Solutions Group, Agilent Technologies. "The synergy from this agreement between two industry leaders will drive more effective management of next generation optical networks."

"This solution will be focused on the heart of some very real challenges for service providers operating an optical network, like total cost of ownership," said Doug Roberts, vice president, Preside Optical Solutions, Nortel Networks. "By combining accessFIBER and Preside, we are expecting to create an open and powerful management system that will help enable service providers to reduce operating costs through improved fault management and more efficient use of network capacity."

"Service providers will be positioned to provision new managed optical services more quickly," Roberts said. "And with improved information from both the physical and logical layers, including an accurate view of fiber capacity in the ground, they'll be able to plan capital expenditures more accurately."

This integrated solution from Nortel Networks and Agilent will be designed to enable service providers to determine quickly when logical alarms are the result of physical fiber problems, and where those problems are located. This is expected to save time and cost over today's methods, which typically require sending service technicians on-site to find the source of the error by testing multiple fiber runs.

Service providers will be able to 'auto-discover' network elements and deployed fiber connections, further reducing costs by populating the accessFIBER inventory database in just a few hours. In addition, service providers will be able to view both in-service resources and those that are still being planned, simplifying the service provisioning process.

"In the past, service providers had to manage two separate databases that never spoke to each other and that required time-consuming manual correlations and changes," White said. "Agilent accessFIBER will be an ideal complement to Nortel Networks Preside management portfolio."

accessFIBER is the key component of Agilent's next generation OSS strategy. It is a physical network management system that combines physical optical network planning, documentation and surveillance capabilities into a single solution.

Nortel Networks Preside management portfolio is a key component of Nortel Networks Smart Optical Network Solution, an integrated, multi-layer software platform that enables dynamic delivery of new, revenue-generating optical services. Nortel Networks Smart Optical Network Solution drives intelligence throughout the Optical Internet -- from the network core, through the metropolitan network and right into the enterprise.

Nortel Networks is a global Internet and communications leader with capabilities spanning Optical, Wireless, Local, Personal Internet and eBusiness. The Company had 2000 U.S. GAAP revenues of US$30.3 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, promising a new era of collaboration, communications and commerce. Visit us at www.nortelnetworks.com.

Agilent Technologies Inc. is a global technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and healthcare. With 48,000 employees serving customers in more than 120 countries, Agilent had net revenue of US$10.8 billion in fiscal year 2000. Information about Agilent can be found on the Web at www.agilent.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements (including, without limitation, the ability of Agilent and Nortel Networks to successfully integrate their products, marketing and sales solutions; and the ability of the combined solution to reduce operational costs, improve network reliability, simplify provisioning of mesh services, and accelerate time-to-revenues) that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the results of Agilent Technologies to differ materially from management's current expectations. These and other risks are detailed in Agilent's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2000, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.