ACADEMIA

Hubei Power Company, a leading player in the world's largest hydroelectric initiative, China's Three Gorges Dam, has selected a high performance Ethernet networking solution from Nortel to prepare its billing and internal communication systems for a new strategic role in the country's national power system. Upon completion of the project in 2009, Hubei Power Company's power supply capacity will significantly expand beyond its current provincial customer base of 52 million to include customers across the entire central China region. "To ignite and power commerce and protect our customers' most critical information, Nortel delivers secure, reliable and intelligent communications solutions to today's enterprises," said, Stephen Tsui, chief operating officer, Greater China, Nortel. "We have been supporting Hubei Power with high-performance solutions like local and wide area networks since 1997, and this new deployment will allow Hubei Power to prepare for future growth by improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of its communication and back office billing systems." Installation of the Nortel system is expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2005. Supporting from eight to 128 Gigabit Ethernet ports as well as connectivity for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, PoS ( Packet over SONET ) and Wave Division Multiplexing technologies, Nortel's Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 solution will provide Hubei Power with a highly resilient, intelligent, secure networking solution. Resiliency, intelligence and security are the basic network building blocks that allow an enterprise to use its network to grow its business and provide a solid foundation for future network growth. Resiliency helps ensure that network resources are always available. Intelligence delivers bandwidth and performance for those applications that need it most. Security helps ensure that the information traveling across the network remains secure and unaltered. Through its reliable and secure converged solutions, Nortel has supported China's power industry for many years, including high performance optical and data solutions since 2002. At the end of 2004, Nortel provided optical and data solutions to six power companies and plants across North, Central and East China, further consolidating its leadership position in China's power industry. Nortel is a leading provider of communications solutions for utility and energy companies worldwide, leveraging expertise in new technologies like IP telephony, Optical Ethernet, and advanced multiservice switching. In China, Nortel has a long history of providing enterprise information networking across a broad range of industries. In addition to utilities and energy, Nortel has been supplying secure and reliable communications solutions to educational, financial and government institutions.