Nortel Networks* has released a new routing switch to power integrated voice, video and data networks. For companies needing to upgrade their core network for eBusiness applications, Nortel Networks Passport* 8600 Routing Switch provides ease-of-use, high-performance, reliability and scalability within a single enterprise platform.

Nortel Networks Passport 8600 can be used in campus and in-building backbone networks, or in service provider metro applications requiring higher performance, routing or MAN connectivity. The blurring of boundaries between campus, MAN and WAN means that a single product can now lay the network foundation for mission-critical eBusiness applications and performance-intensive IP telephony.

Nortel Networks Passport Routing Switch portfolio (formerly Accelar Routing Switch portfolio) provides switching and routing throughput of 96 million packets per second over copper and optical media. It also supports a high-performance Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching architecture that can deliver 50 to 128 gigabits per second scalable bandwidth today, upgradeable to 256 gigabits per second in 2001.

Nortel Networks Passport 8600 Routing Switch is designed to provide 99.999 percent uptime to network managers. This is essential in the eBusiness environment where network down time can result in loss of competitive advantage, customer loyalty and revenues. High availability and resilience also result is lower cost of ownership and more time for network managers to spend on mission-critical applications. Advanced and simple-to-use management and configurations options enable quick adjustments to network, application and user policies without compromising performance or security. New hardware and software based quality-of-service (QoS) features provide toll quality telephony over the LAN/MAN. Targeted at large and medium enterprises, Passport 8600 also delivers the resilience and application-optimized performance necessary to support true telephony, video and data services.

Available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Nortel Networks Passport 8600 Routing Switch interfaces include Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet with Packet-over-SONET and ATM. Higher speed interfaces, such as 10 gigabits per second Ethernet, are being developed for introduction in 2001.

For more information, contact Shelley Facius, 44 0207 306 9000, facius@fleishman.com or Isabelle Tadmoury, 44 0207 529 3063, tadmoury@nortel.com.

* Nortel Networks, the Nortel Networks logo and the Globemark, are trademarks of Nortel Networks.