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Cellcom Israel celebrated its remarkable growth today at Telecom Israel '98 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Using TDMA IS-136 radio and switching equipment from Nortel Networks* [NYSE: NT/ TSE:NTL], Cellcom Israel delivers a feature-rich, high-quality service to business users and consumers in a country that has one of the highest penetration rates worldwide for wireless phone service.

The alliance of Cellcom Israel and Nortel Networks has resulted in the development of a suite of advanced products and services such as the DualMode* Urban cell site, especially designed for high traffic urban areas, and Voice Activated Dialing, based on Nortel's speech recognition technology.

"Nortel Networks cutting-edge features, including Voice Activated Dialing, Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) and Enhanced Full Rate Codec (EFRC), have helped us bring the services our customers expect and desire," said Shalom Manova, COO and deputy CEO, Cellcom Israel. "Nortel Networks experience in deploying large wireless networks worldwide has proved key for us to achieve this milestone in record time."

Nortel Networks EFRC uses the latest TDMA IS-136 speech coding algorithm along with proprietary enhancements to offer subscribers high digital audio quality. The CDPD solution gives subscribers a reliable and economical data service for mobile office, public safety and monitoring applications.

From the beginning, Cellcom Israel has set out to become a pioneer in the adoption of some of the most advanced wireless services and features," said Dan Hunt, president, CALA, Nortel Networks. "The backing of Cellcom Israel's engineering team has been key to the development of new Nortel Networks technologies that the people of Israel have been able to enjoy."

Further innovations are on the horizon for Cellcom Israel. The company was recently awarded a 1900 MHz PCS trial license and is currently working with Nortel Networks on trials for an upbanded TDMA IS-136 network.

Cellcom Israel continues to lead in the early adoption of advanced technology with trials of Nortel Networks multibeam antenna and array processing technology.

Cellcom Israel, a consortium formed by BellSouth International, Brazil-based Safra banking group and Discount Investment Group outbid five other consortia to win a license in 1994. Cellcom Israel provided an aggressive response to the Ministry of Communications' tender that entailed service coverage, speed of implementation, introduction of digital technology and service ratio tariffs. The BellSouth-Safra partnership has also teamed with Nortel Networks to deploy advanced wireless networks in Sao Paulo and the Northeastern region of Brazil.

Nortel Networks' common shares are listed on the New York, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and London stock exchanges. Nortel Networks had 1997 revenues of US$15.5 billion and Bay Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nortel Networks, had revenues of US$2.4 billion during its most recent fiscal year. The combined company's workforce totals approximately 80,000 employees worldwide.

* DualMode, Nortel Networks, the Nortel Globemark and How the world shares ideas are trademarks of Northern Telecom.