News and offers, July 2009

Bell is Canada's first national service provider to earn MEF Certifications for Ethernet services

MONTRÉAL, July 13, 2009 – Bell today announced it has become the first Canadian national communications service provider to receive two certifications from the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) for its Bell Ethernet services.

After a series of comprehensive tests conducted by California-based Iometrix Inc. – an official MEF certification test lab – Bell became MEF 9 and MEF 14 certified for its Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) services, which provide point-to-point connectivity and a full menu of features for business clients.

"This gives our customers the assurance that Bell's Ethernet services perform according to agreed service level specifications," said Stéphane Boisvert, President of Bell Business Markets. "And it tells clients that we are the only national provider whose EVPL services are certified to these rigorous international standards."

MEF 9 is the foundation certification ensuring that technical uncertainties are eliminated and a common language established so that Bell's customers can connect their networks to Bell's Ethernet services quickly and easily.

MEF 14 builds on this foundation by providing the first performance certification of its kind in the industry. It indicates that Bell's network components not only interoperate effectively but perform at high service levels with minimal frame delay, frame delay variation, and frame loss.

"It's becoming common to see requests from clients asking if we are MEF certified. We are the first service provider in Canada that can say yes, which eliminates a lot of risk for client IT departments when deciding which provider to use," said Mr. Boisvert.

With Bell operating the largest fibre network in Canada, fibre-based Ethernet Wide Area Network services are an important part of the Bell Business Markets portfolio, providing customers with numerous benefits including:

• Scalability and reach in Canada
• Control and maintenance of customer IP routing over Bell's fully managed Ethernet Wide Area Network
• High performance and quality of service
• High bandwidth speeds available with low latency
• Reliability with robust architectures and fast re-routing algorithms
• Simplicity: Allows LAN style management for the WAN

Bell's Ethernet services enable numerous applications ranging from site-to-site connections, converged networking for VoIP, and video and data to business applications such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, business continuity and disaster recovery as well as data centre and hosting services.