Nortel Networks teams up with Bell Nexxia

Nortel Networks and Bell Nexxia have joined forces to provide cost-effective access to corporate data. The two organisations have announced that Bell Nexxia has selected Nortel`s Contivity Extranet Switch for its national virtual private network (VPN) service portfolio.

"The service will leverage the global reach and cost savings of the Internet to provide secure, high-performance connectivity to corporate networks and applications from anywhere in the world," says Doug Batchelor, regional director of Nortel Networks` Enterprise Solutions line of business in South Africa.

Terry Jarman, president and CEO of Bell Nexxia, comments: "Competitive pressure is driving businesses to change the way they interact with employees, customers and business partners. Nortel Networks provides us with a highly-scalable, cost-effective platform that guarantees secure networking across the Internet."

Using the Contivity Extranet Switch, Bell Nexxia is able to offer stringent service-level agreements (SLAs), providing corporate clients with a fully-managed, end-to-end solution. As Contivity is easy to configure and requires no changes to the network, Bell Nexxia can quickly and easily add new customers and provision new services, including security, firewall filtering and bandwidth management.

"Today`s competitive service providers are looking to offer solutions to the burgeoning IP-VPN marketplace," Batchelor points out. "The Contivity Extranet Switch will make it easy for Bell Nexxia to offer IP-VPN services, effectively leveraging their existing IP infrastructure."

The Nexxia.IP VPN Remote Access and Extended Community services are built upon the Contivity switch. The Nexxia.IP VPN service portfolio offers a fully-managed, cost-effective alternative to traditional remote access services (RAS) for enterprises seeking securely connected teleworkers, mobile workers or a distributed workforce to the corporate Intranet or Extranet.

The VPN Remote Access service provides timely access to mission-critical information and scales to tens of thousands of employees and business partners. It also establishes a platform upon which a suite of enhanced, IP-based services may be constructed, including network learning, web hosting and multimedia applications.

The Extended Community service provides branch-to-branch connectivity to enable international offices and business partners to gain secure access to a company`s network and applications.

Nortel Networks works with customers world-wide to design, build, and deliver telecommunications and IP-optimised networks. Customers include public and private enterprises and institutions; Internet service providers; local, long-distance, cellular and PCS communications companies; cable television carriers; and utilities.

Nortel Networks` common shares are listed on the New York, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and London stock exchanges. Nortel Networks had 1998 revenues of US$17.6 billion and has approximately 75,000 employees world-wide.