Europe : Orange Slovensko has launched a high data rate business and consumer service in Slovakia based on EDGE (Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution) technology from Nortel. The service is positioned by Orange Slovensko as an alternative to fixed broadband Internet access solutions.

Compared to GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), EDGE offers on average up to three times the data throughput, a rate comparable to fixed DSL (digital subscriber line) connection speeds.

The first of the EDGE services from Orange Slovensko was launched in December 2004 for its corporate customers, aimed at enhancing the company's existing corporate VPN (virtual private network) offer based on the concept of the mobile office. Following this successful service launch, Orange Slovensko announced a mass market consumer EDGE service in January 2005.

"Working with Nortel, we are taking a big step in enhancing the lives of our Slovakian customers to get fast access to the Internet and broadband data applications," said Dana Prekopova, chief technology officer, Orange Slovensko. "Nortel's technology is extremely reliable. It provides an excellent evolution to our network and it is an extremely competitive offering."

"Once we had made a decision to work with Nortel, they backed up our choice with excellent service, taking only two weeks to implement EDGE on our network, rapidly enabling us to offer services to our customers," Prekopova said.

Nortel's EDGE solution is designed to deliver the capacity and performance necessary to offer reliable high-speed Internet access with excellent service quality. The EDGE solution shares radio spectrum with Orange Slovensko's existing Nortel GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and GPRS services, allowing for a highly flexible implementation that minimises network impact and costs.

Orange Slovensko's GSM and GPRS network is based on Nortel technology and covers 99.1 percent of the population and 86.4 percent of the geography of Slovakia. The overall rollout of Nortel EDGE technology has so far covered about one-third of this existing network. Further EDGE rollout is expected to take place in stages based on market demand for EDGE services.

Nortel demonstrated high speed broadband wireless data technology with Orange at 3GSM World Congress 2005, February 14-17 in Cannes.

Nortel has designed, installed and launched more than 300 wireless networks in over 70 countries. Nortel was the industry's first supplier with wireless networks operating in all advanced radio technologies (GSM/GPRS/EDGE, CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO, UMTS and WLAN), and is the only end-to-end provider of all next generation wireless solutions.