Bell network delivers golden Games to Canada and the world

    
    Bell's 2010 Winter Games communications network the biggest in Olympic
    history
    Highlights Canadian communications innovation to the world
    Provides a legacy of enhanced broadband connectivity for British Columbia
    

VANCOUVER, March 1 /CNW Telbec/ - Bell, a Premier National Partner and the Exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, is proud to have delivered the most-watched Winter Games in history to Canada and the world. From February 12 to 28, every image seen on TV, every story read around the world and every real-time score transmitted during the Games traversed a communications solution designed and delivered by Bell.

"The Bell team rose to the extraordinary challenge of connecting the 2010 Winter Games and bringing these 17 glorious Canadian days to the billions of people watching around the world too," said George Cope, President and CEO of Bell Canada. "The leadership role Bell played in delivering Canada's Games drove communications innovation in this country to new heights. By exceeding the immensely high communications standards of an Olympic event, we've provided an incredible legacy of increased broadband connectivity for British Columbia."

As the first telecommunications partner to deliver both wireless and wireline connectivity to an Olympic Games, Bell successfully executed all critical network and communications services at Vancouver 2010, including enhanced high-speed wireless data and fibre broadband networking, complete broadcast support, extensive Internet portal services and full network security.

The 2010 Winter Games network supported the communications needs of an estimated 250,000 visitors, almost 6,500 athletes and officials, 50,000 staff and volunteers, and more than 10,000 members of the Canadian and international media. Bell's Olympic network delivered over 24,000 hours of broadcast coverage to more than three and a half billion viewers around the world according to the International Olympic Committee - the most in Olympic history, and a 50 per cent increase over the 2006 Winter Games in Torino and a 25 per cent increase over the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

"Bell has been a superb telecommunications partner, formulating a detailed and innovative plan, continually meeting its commitments and successfully helping VANOC deliver the 2010 Winter Games to the world," said John Furlong, Chief Executive Officer of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. "Bell truly lived up to our expectations and to its reputation as Canada's communications leader."

Said Justin Webb, Vice President of Olympic Services for Bell: "Not only did Bell have the telecommunications network Games-ready faster than in any host country before us, we were the first to build an entire Olympic Games network from scratch using state-of-the-art Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology, based around a 10 gigabyte backbone and almost 300 kilometres of fibre optic cable connecting Vancouver and Whistler and 130 Olympic venues and support sites across the region."

Bell customers also had access to the company's new high-speed HSPA/HSPA+ wireless network, Canada's fastest and largest network, completed on time for the Games and - for the first time in Olympic history - offering mobile users across Canada a virtual front row seat to the 2010 Winter Games with live mobile Olympic coverage from seven television networks.

    
    Bell network statistics for Vancouver 2010

    - 1 trillion packets of data traversed Bell's Vancouver network
    - 90 million minutes of mobile voice traffic
    - 30 million megabytes of mobile data
    - 65 million mobile text messages sent and received
    - 750,000 calls made from 6,000 landline VOIP phones
    - 4.9 billion bytes of data delivered to the Internet on behalf of the
      Games
    - 1.2 million metres of Cat5 cabling installed to support 31,000 ethernet
      ports
    - 300 million people visited vancouver2010.com - representing 1.1 billion
      page views
    - An Olympic record-setting 24 billion bps of capacity connected Games
      broadcasters to the world
    - 300 billion bps delivered to connect all venues for broadcast to the
      International Broadcast Centre
    

About Bell

Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers and business with solutions to all their communications needs, including Bell Mobility wireless, high-speed Bell Internet, Bell TV direct-to-home satellite television, Bell Home phone local and long distance, and IP-broadband and information and communications technology (ICT) services. Bell is proud to be a Premier National Partner and the exclusive Telecommunications Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE). For information on Bell's products and services, please visit www.bell.ca. For corporate information on BCE, please visit www.bce.ca.

For further information: Jeff Meerman, Bell Media Relations, [phone], [email protected]