neuf Cegetel, the largest alternative operator in France, has deployed a VoIP solution from Nortel to provide carrier-grade voice services over DSL broadband access to businesses and consumers throughout France.

"For neuf Cegetel, VoIP represents a considerable development opportunity for the home subscriber and corporate markets, enabling us to offer innovative services while optimizing our infrastructure costs," said Francois Paulus, general manager, network and marketing division, neuf Cegetel. "Nortel has a strong reputation for delivering high-quality solutions. With their technology and support, we are well equipped to succeed in this very competitive market."

neuf Cegetel has an installed base of more than one million residential broadband subscribers in France. Since June 2004, neuf Cegetel has deployed VoIP services to more than 350,000 of these subscribers using Nortel solutions. Earlier this year, neuf Cegetel also selected Nortel solutions to launch neuf Office service, a carrier-grade VoIP services offering for business customers.

"As demand for multimedia services grows among consumers and businesses, more and more operators in Europe and abroad are selecting Nortel's scaleable, reliable, and open solutions to provide these services," said Michel Clement, president, Nortel France. "Nortel is extremely pleased that neuf Cegetel, one of the leading telecom operators in France, has chosen to work with us to address this exciting market."

Nortel's VoIP solution for neuf Cegetel includes the Communication Server (CS) 2000 superclass softswitch, which functions as a powerful and flexible platform to deploy consumer and business VoIP services. neuf Cegetel has also deployed the Nortel Media Gateway (MG) 15000, which serves as a high density IP trunk gateway to interconnect with other carrier networks.

Nortel ranked number one in the global markets for service provider softswitches and gateways for the first half of 2005 and the entire year of 2004, according to Synergy Research Group. Nortel is providing VoIP and multimedia solutions to many of the world's leading service providers, including Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, SaskTel, Telus, Verizon, Sprint, MCI, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Hong Kong Broadband and CompleTel in France.