Nortel Micom`s Marathon I-FRAD leads fourth quarter 1997 with 83% of worldwide voice ports deployed

Nortel (Northern Telecom) today announced that its Micom division, part of the newly formed Enterprise Data Networks business unit, led the worldwide Frame Relay Access Device (FRAD) market for the fourth quarter of 1997, with 83 percent of voice ports in that category deployed in that time period, according to industry analyst firm Dell `Oro Group. Micom`s Marathon Integration Frame Relay Access Device (I-FRAD) market share rose 4.1 percent from the third quarter of 1997 results of 78.9 percent also from Dell `Oro Group. "These market share numbers illustrate Marathon`s continuing, strong presence in the FRAD market and the customers` decision to purchase a proven product, which has been a leader in the marketplace," said Nortel`s Bill Conner, president of Enterprise Data Networks. "In fact, Marathon is just about to reach its `250,000 shipped` milestone, indicating once again that cost-effectiveness, reliability and solid voice quality are of primary importance to the customer." The Marathon 3K provides a cost-effective Power Networks solution for voice-intensive corporate inter-branch networks. The Marathon I-FRAD integrates data, voice, fax and local area network (LAN) traffic over a single public frame relay permanent virtual circuit (PVC) and/or private leased line from 9.6 to 1.544 Mbps or 2.048 Mbps. Intracompany phone/fax calls bypass the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), eliminating long-distance toll charges and the need for multiple wide-area connections. Marathon provides Micom`s standards-compliant ClearVoice technology based on the G.729 voice algorithm. ClearVoice also includes silence suppression, Group 3 fax demodulation, forward error correction and echo cancellation technologies to ensure toll-quality voice company-wide. Micom solutions operate over a wide variety of WAN technologies, including public and private frame relay, leased lines and satellite. Micom markets its network solutions to small and mid-size companies and enterprise IP networks. Nortel Power Networks apply high-capacity, digital communications technology to customer needs through the integration of products and services including: * Meridian 1 and Norstar digital switching; * Companion mobility solutions; * the Nortel Symposium multimedia communications portfolio; * Internet and intranet access and security products; * Passport and Micom wide area networking systems; and * a portfolio of consumer products.