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BellSouth Chooses Nortel Contact Center and Speech Solutions; Migrates 22 Contact Centers to Next Gen Technology to Better Serve CustomersDALLAS --(Business Wire)-- Jan. 31, 2005 -- The telephone operating subsidiary of BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) has selected enhanced IP contact center and speech solutions from Nortel (NYSE:NT)(TSX:NT) for deployment in 22 locations across nine states. According to recent Frost & Sullivan market research, Nortel has designed and deployed over 200 speech applications for automating and improving routine business functions in more than 16 countries. "BellSouth needed a comprehensive solution that could provide skill-based routing, e-mail, chat and other multimedia and collaboration applications," said Richard Burns, vice president - centers and operations support, BellSouth. "Nortel is able to provide this in a cost-effective manner that allows us to better serve our customers." BellSouth is migrating to Nortel's latest Internet Protocol (IP) contact center solution to create versatile, end-to-end customer contact centers to better serve its customer base of more than 21 million access lines and 2 million DSL customers and BellSouth Long Distance, Inc.'s 6 million long-distance customers. BellSouth is also migrating its Nortel Meridian 1 solution to software version 4.0 of the Communications Server (CS 1000) IP PBX platform to provide increased scalability and flexibility, providing a choice of migration paths to an IP multimedia environment and improved customer service. Nortel's Symposium portfolio is a diverse suite of customer interaction solutions for customer contact centers. The ability to migrate gracefully to IP is a critical capability of Nortel's IP Contact Center, enabling companies to leverage the benefits of IP Telephony without having to overhaul or purchase completely new communications infrastructures. Customers can use the Symposium Call Center Server with CS 1000 to leverage the power and performance of convergence. "This agreement builds on Nortel's continued strong relationship with BellSouth," said Roxann Swanson, vice president and general manager, enterprise multimedia applications, Nortel. "For more than 22 years, BellSouth has deployed Nortel solutions spanning voice and data products." The award-winning Symposium suite enables businesses to take advantage of powerful capabilities like skill-based routing, comprehensive management and reporting, and real-time displays to enhance the human experience, resulting in stronger, more profitable relationships. About BellSouth BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless voice and data provider. Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(R), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(R) and The Real Yellow Pages(R). More information about BellSouth can be found at www.bellsouth.com. 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. Serving both service provider and enterprise customers, Nortel delivers innovative technology solutions encompassing end-to-end broadband, Voice over IP, multimedia services and applications, and wireless broadband designed to help people solve the world's greatest challenges. 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 information included in this press release is forward-looking and is subject to important risks and uncertainties. The results or events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual results or events. Factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations include, among other things: the outcome of regulatory and criminal investigations and civil litigation actions related to Nortel's restatements and the impact any resulting legal judgments, settlements, penalties and expenses could have on Nortel's results of operations, financial condition and liquidity; the findings of Nortel's independent review and implementation of recommended remedial measures; the outcome of the independent review with respect to revenues for specific identified transactions, which review will have a particular emphasis on the underlying conduct that led to the initial recognition of these revenues; the restatement or revisions of Nortel's previously announced or filed financial results and resulting negative publicity; the existence of material weaknesses in Nortel's internal controls over financial reporting; the impact of Nortel's and NNL's failure to timely file their financial statements and related periodic reports, including breach of its support facility and public debt obligations and Nortel's inability to access its shelf registration statement filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); ongoing SEC reviews, which may result in changes to our public filings; the potential delisting or suspension of Nortel's and NNL's publicly traded securities; the impact of management changes, including the termination for cause of Nortel's former CEO, CFO and Controller in August 2004; the sufficiency of Nortel's restructuring activities, including the work plan announced on August 19, 2004 as updated on September 30, 2004, including the potential for higher actual costs to be incurred in connection with restructuring actions compared to the estimated costs of such actions; cautious or reduced spending by Nortel's customers; fluctuations in Nortel's operating results and general industry, economic and market conditions and growth rates; fluctuations in Nortel's cash flow, level of outstanding debt and current debt ratings; Nortel's ability to recruit and retain qualified employees; the use of cash collateral to support Nortel's normal course business activities; the dependence on Nortel's subsidiaries for funding; the impact of Nortel's defined benefit plans and deferred tax assets on results of operations and Nortel's cash flow; the adverse resolution of class actions, litigation in the ordinary course of business, intellectual property disputes and similar matters; Nortel's dependence on new product development and its ability to predict market demand for particular products; Nortel's ability to integrate the operations and technologies of acquired businesses in an effective manner; the impact of rapid technological and market change; the impact of price and product competition; barriers to international growth and global economic conditions, particularly in emerging markets and including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations; the impact of rationalization in the telecommunications industry; changes in regulation of the Internet; the impact of the credit risks of Nortel's customers and the impact of customer financing and commitments; stock market volatility generally and as a result of acceleration of the settlement date or early settlement, which is currently not available, of Nortel's forward purchase contracts; the impact of Nortel's supply and outsourcing contracts that contain delivery and installation provisions, which, if not met, could result in the payment of substantial penalties or liquidated damages; and the future success of Nortel's strategic alliances. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed by Nortel with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Nortel, the Nortel logo, the Globemark, Symposium, Meridian and Meridian 1 are trademarks of Nortel Networks. |
