Nortel Networks has been around almost as long as the telephone. Founded in 1895, the company originally made telephone equipment for Bell. Eighty years later, the company was the first to declare that it would work with digital telephony, and in 2001 Gartner Dataquest ranked Nortel as the number one producer of global telecommunications equipment.

Nortel's VPN offerings are divided into two broad categories: self-managed and carrier-managed. These are targeted to service providers and large enterprise-level corporations.

The self-managed category is for companies that have large IT departments able to manage VPNs themselves, and who are not receiving their VPN services from a service provider. This is particularly ideal for enterprises. Revolving around Contivity VPN switching devices, Nortel offers a variety of intranet, extranet, and remote access VPNs. In this case, the equipment is installed at the customer site alone.

Nortel's carrier-managed services are for companies that are going to be providing VPN services for clients; primarily service providers. In this case, the same basic services exist as in the first offering, although managed rather than self-managed, along with managed Internet access services and managed security services. There is a larger range of switches than in the first offering, and the equipment is installed either at the service provider site or at both the customer and service provider sites.

In addition to connecting enterprise networks through VPN technology, Nortel works to enhance business communication through a selection of voice over IP solutions. The company offers a choice of flexible, reliable deployment options, designed to emulate the stages of migration to a full VoIP implementation. Nortel delivers an IP-Enabled solution, which leverages existing communications investments as companies migrate to VoIP, a Telephony solution, which maintains original investments with future IP needs in mind, and an IP Contact Center solution, which extends the full functionality of a contact center, while providing a seamless experience for customers and suppliers. Nortel also delivers a suite of VoIP solutions designed for Service providers.

Nortel Networks can be contacted via their Web site, or by telephone at 1-800-466-7835.