Nortel Overview

The invention of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in Brantford, Ontario in 1874 paved the way for telecommunications as we know them today. The patent rights went to the National Bell Telephone Company of the United States and Bell Telephone Company of Canada. Faced with the death of only one man who supplied all its telephone units, and the prospect of losing Canadian patent rights if it didn't manufacture domestically, Bell Telephone Company of Canada opened its own manufacturing division in Montreal.

In 1895, Canada evolved into a country with a transcontinental railway and the beginnings of a national telephone system. To take advantage of opportunities to sell to other companies, and to sell non-telephone apparatus, the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited was incorporated. Since its founding in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, supplying telecommunications equipment for Canada's new telephone system, Nortel has grown to become a global leader in delivering communications capabilities and services that secure and protect the world's most critical information.

With over a century of experience in the communications industry and drawing on its fundamental understanding of the network - voice and data - Nortel secures computing, network applications and end-user environments. Nortel helps governments, businesses and individuals stay ahead of threats, including hacker intrusion, worms, denial of service attacks, and identity theft, while also delivering enhanced network management capabilities in the areas of LAN/MAN/WAN, optical networks, voice and multimedia communications.

New and used Nortel products