Timken Cuts Customer Wait Time with Nortel's Virtual Contact Center

Market Wire, January, 2007

The Timken Company, a global manufacturer of bearings and alloy steels, is reducing the amount of time a customer waits in queue by 25 percent using the Virtual Contact Center solution with VoIP from Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(NYSE: NT).

With US$5.2 billion in annual sales in 2005 and operations across 27 countries, Timken has nine contact centers in North America but the company previously had no way to unify its contact centers to have them work as one team. Nortel's Virtual Contact Center solution now allows Timken's agents to interact as if they were co-located to present one face to the company.

Timken customers access a flexible contact center that quickly routes their calls through menu choices to the most appropriate agent. Since the call is not limited to the resources or time constraints of a specific location as it once was, wait times for Timken customers are significantly reduced. There has been a 25 percent to 40 percent improvement in customer responsiveness, without having to increase staff.

Nortel's Virtual Contact Center solution also improves agent productivity and reduces costs by distributing customer calls across sites according to resource availability, demand, and skill set.

"Prior to implementing Nortel technology, our call centers could not quickly and efficiently share resources or skill sets across our call center sites," said Rick Mowery, Timken section manager for Network Design and Engineering.

"Real-time displays help keep agents from being surprised by a queue that is backing up because they can see it in real-time, giving us a great grasp of who we're getting calls from and how many calls are in the queue," Mowery said. "With on-demand reports that can be customized based on the information needed, managers can quickly identify trouble spots and re-route calls in a matter of minutes if necessary."

Timken also has a stronger grasp on call volume and can better serve their customers by ensuring lower wait times.

Timken managers are also benefiting from Nortel's Virtual Contact Center because it saves them time from dealing with repetitive and redundant tasks such as manually consolidating metrics from various locations. Reports are generated automatically and reflect information gathered from all the contact centers.

"With its products ranging from use in elevators at the Eiffel Tower, to the Mars Rover, and to Air Force One, it is essential for Timken to ensure timely, reliable support for its customers," said Dave Murashige, general manager, Multimedia Applications, Nortel. "The Nortel Contact Center technology brings Timken a more versatile environment so they can tap into their best resources based on availability, demand, and skill set to offer industry-leading customer service."

Timken is also using Nortel's Remote Gateway 9150 and Nortel Remote Gateway 9115 to support IP telephony (VoIP) services for all their branch offices. This makes it feasible for some of their workers to telecommute and connect securely to the virtual contact center network from their home offices.

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. Our next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications, and help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people with information. 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 statements in this press release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different. Further, actual results or events could differ materially from those contemplated in forward-looking statements as a result of the following

(i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and related matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements and related events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal investigations of Nortel in the U.S. and Canada; any significant pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel's proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash payment and/or significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity positions resulting from the approval of its proposed class action settlement; any unsuccessful remediation of Nortel's material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulting in an inability to report Nortel's results of operations and financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the time required to implement Nortel's remedial measures; Nortel's inability to access, in its current form, its shelf registration filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Nortel's below investment grade credit rating and any further adverse effect on its credit rating due to Nortel's restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect on Nortel's business and market price of its publicly traded securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to Nortel's restatements; Nortel's potential inability to attract or retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives; any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension or delisting procedures;