Latin American Nautilus Picks Nortel Networks for Optical Backbone

MIAMI, Oct. 24 -- Latin American Nautilus, a joint venture of Telecom Italia, Telecom Argentina, Entel Bolivia and Entel Chile, has selected Nortel Networks to supply optical equipment and professional services for its new, high-performance, pan-regional backbone network. The value of the contract is approximately $19 million.

Latin American Nautilus already links some of the largest cities in South America -- including Santiago, Chile; La Paz, Bolivia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Caracas, Venezuela and Sao Paulo and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil -- with major urban centers in North America (New York and Miami) and Central America (Panama) through more than 18,600 miles of terrestrial and submarine fiber optic cable.