CENIC Announces The Addition of Nortel Networks to its Associates Program

San Diego, CA – May 22, 2001: The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) announced today that Nortel Networks has joined its Associates program. Nortel Networks is a global leader in communications and Internet solutions for service providers and corporations.

Through CENIC’s Associates program, commercial research partners are able to collaborate with California’s higher education community, which is renowned for its pivotal role in advancing today’s commercial Internet in partnership with the federal government and private sector. Setting the stage for a new era of networking requires that same intensity and partnerships.

“Nortel Networks has a strong track record in applying innovative technologies to boost the performance and reliability of today’s Internet. CENIC’s charter members are the architects of CalREN-2, an ultra wideband R&D network dedicated to research and education. CENIC looks forward to collaborating with Nortel Networks in building the next-step CalREN for California’s research and education communities,” said Thomas W. West, CENIC's president and executive director.

“Nortel Networks is driving today’s high-performance Internet to be more reliable, more powerful, more profitable and faster than ever before,” stated Daniel Pitt, Vice President, Advanced Technology Investments, Nortel Networks. “Our collaboration with CENIC and its emerging Optical Network Initiative and the Digital California Project underscores Nortel Networks long-standing commitment to provide next generation, industry-leading solutions that advance the quality and economics of the global Internet, and expand the communication benefits for individuals and organizations worldwide.”

CENIC is a not-for-profit corporation formed by the California Institute of Technology, the California State University, Stanford University, the University of California, and the University of Southern California to facilitate and coordinate the deployment, development, and operation of a set of seamless and robust advanced network services. The CENIC Associates program offers qualified companies the opportunity to collaborate with CENIC in pursuit of the goal of providing the most advanced network services for research and education. Cisco Systems, IBM, and Pacific Bell are CENIC’s Associate Partners; CommerceNet is an Associate Sponsor; and General Atomics, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Raytheon are Associate Affiliates.

CalREN-2 is the first project of CENIC, founded in 1997 by California’s major research and academic universities. CalREN-2 performs at unprecedented speeds of over 1000 times faster than the commercial Internet. CENIC operates CalREN-2 for qualified public and private sector institutions for research and learning purposes. CalREN-2 is California's segment of the national Internet2 initiative and is partially funded by the National Science Foundation.

In the 2000-2001 fiscal year, the State of California provided funding for the Digital California Project, or DCP, which is CENIC’s second project. The target of the DCP is the development of a cohesive and seamless high-speed statewide education network interconnecting K-12 schools and institutions of higher education in California.

More information about CENIC and its Associates program can be found at www.cenic.org.

For more information about Nortel Networks, please visit www.nortelnetworks.com.

*Nortel Networks is a trademark of Nortel Networks.