MTC Delivers 3G Services in Kuwait Driven by Nortel
London, November 22 (ots/PRNewswire)
- Enhanced Optical Network Provides Innovative Mobile Wireless Services
MTC (Mobile Telecommunications Company), a leading mobile operator in the Middle East and Africa, is delivering high-speed mobile services such as mobile video, multimedia messaging and web browsing in Kuwait with a Nortel(1) [NYSE/TSX: NT] optical solution.
"MTC is a company of achievement and aspiration," said Dr. Saad Al Barrak, chief executive officer, MTC Group. "Nortel has helped us establish a reliable network in Kuwait that allows us to focus on delivering the innovative services that our customers want today. One of the reasons we selected Nortel is that their solution is future-proof so we can easily add new services when our customers want them."
"MTC's dedication to customer needs reflects our Nortel philosophy," said Tim Watkins, president Northern Region, Middle East and Turkey, Nortel. "And, we have the technology to help them keep pace with staggering demand for the latest most innovative high-speed mobile services. We've worked with MTC for 13 years helping to deliver GSM services across Kuwait and now we've been able to use Nortel optical technology to seamlessly transition their GSM network to deliver 3G services for customers in Kuwait."
The MTC Kuwait transport network is delivered by products from Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networking solutions portfolio and comprises the Nortel Optical Metro 4150 platform at hub sites for aggregation and the Optical Multiservice Edge 6500 in the core for further aggregation and 10G DWDM transport. The network has a redundant architecture to support the aggressive reliability targets required to support the volume and category of traffic handled. MTC's goal was to create a "future proof" network for enabling seamless migration to Ethernet transport - in step with the mobile network and services evolution to 3GPP and LTE - and prepare the network for the expected growth in bandwidth required to support advanced mobility services.
About MTC
As a leading mobile and data services operator in six Middle Eastern and 14 sub-Saharan African countries with 12,000 employees, MTC provides a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to 24.9 million individual and business customers (as of September 30, 2006).
MTC operates in Kuwait and Bahrain as MTC-Vodafone, in Jordan as Fastlink, in Iraq as MTC Atheer, in Lebanon as MTC Touch, in Sudan as Mobitel. It also operates as Celtel in the 14 sub-Saharan African countries - Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Code: Tele), MTC's market capitalisation exceeded US$14.9 billion as of October 31, 2006. For more information please visit www.mtctelecom.com
About Nortel
Nortel is a recognised 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. Nortel has made various assumptions in the preparation of its financial outlook in this press release, including the following company specific assumptions: no further negative impact to Nortel's results of operations, financial condition and liquidity arising from Nortel's restatements of its financial results; Nortel's prices increasing at or above the rate of price increases for similar products in geographic regions in which Nortel sells its products; increase in sales to Nortel's enterprise customers and wireless service provider customers in the Asia Pacific region as a result of Nortel's joint venture with LG Electronics Inc.; anticipated growth in sales to enterprise customers, including the full year impact to Nortel's revenues from its acquisition of PEC Solutions, Inc., (now Nortel Government Solutions Incorporated); improvement in Nortel's product costs due to favourable supplier pricing substantially offset by higher costs associated with initial customer deployments in emerging markets; cost reductions resulting from the completion of Nortel's significant financial restatements and 2004 restructuring plan; a moderate increase in costs over 2005 related to investments in the finance organisation and remedial measures related to Nortel's material weaknesses in internal controls; increased employee costs relative to expected cost of living adjustments and employee bonuses offset by a significant reduction in executive recruitment and severance costs incurred in 2005; and the effective execution of Nortel's strategy. Nortel has also made certain macroeconomic and general industry assumptions in the preparation of its financial guidance including: a modest growth rate in the gross domestic product of global economies in the range of 3.9% which is higher than the growth rate in 2005; global service provider capital expenditures in 2006 reflecting mid to high single digit growth as compared to low double digit growth in 2005; a general increase in demand for broadband access, data traffic and wireless infrastructure and services in emerging markets with the rate of growth in developed markets beginning to slow; and a moderate impact as a result of expected industry consolidation among service providers in various geographic regions, particularly in North America and EMEA. The above assumptions, although considered reasonable by Nortel at the date of this press release, may prove to be inaccurate and consequently Nortel's actual results could differ materially from its expectations set out in this press release.
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; (ii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's business including: yearly and quarterly fluctuations of Nortel's operating results; reduced demand and pricing pressures for its products due to global economic conditions, significant competition, competitive pricing practice, cautious capital spending by customers, increased industry consolidation, rapidly changing technologies, evolving industry standards, frequent new product introductions and short product life cycles, and other trends and industry characteristics affecting the telecommunications industry; the sufficiency of recently announced restructuring actions, including the potential for higher actual costs to be incurred in connection with these restructuring actions compared to the estimated costs of such actions and the ability to achieve the targeted cost savings and reductions of Nortel's unfunded pension liability deficit; any material and adverse affects on Nortel's performance if its expectations regarding market demand for particular products prove to be wrong or because of certain barriers in its efforts to expand internationally; any reduction in Nortel's operating results and any related volatility in the market price of its publicly traded securities arising from any decline in its gross margin, or fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; any negative developments associated with Nortel's supply contract and contract manufacturing agreements including as a result of using a sole supplier for key optical networking solutions components, and any defects or errors in Nortel's current or planned products; any negative impact to Nortel of its failure to achieve its business transformation objectives, including completion of the sale of its UMTS access business to Alcatel; additional valuation allowances for all or a portion of its deferred tax assets; Nortel's failure to protect its intellectual property rights, or any adverse judgments or settlements arising out of disputes regarding intellectual property; changes in regulation of the Internet and/or other aspects of the industry; Nortel's failure to successfully operate or integrate its strategic acquisitions, or failure to consummate or succeed with its strategic alliances; any negative effect of Nortel's failure to evolve adequately its financial and managerial control and reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its business, or create an effective risk management strategy; and (iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity, financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel capitalising on business opportunities because of support facility covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt issues and the provisions of its support facility; any increase of restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal course business activities, or any inability of Nortel's subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks or inability of customers to fulfil payment obligations under customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel's ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further declines in the market price of Nortel's publicly traded securities, or the planned share consolidation resulting in a lower total market capitalisation or adverse effect on the liquidity of Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other securities filings 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.
(1) Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
www.nortel.com
Contact:
For more information: José Luis Menoyo, +34-917-094567,
menoyo@nortel.com. Greta Brown, +44-1628-432968, gretab@nortel.com.
Pat Cooper, +1-425-450-7523, pat.cooper@nortel.com