The multi-national company, whose headquarters are in Toronto, have paid £50 million to be the official network infrastructure partner. 

 

They already have a similar sponsorship deal with the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

 

It means London 2012 is now over half-way to reaching its sponsorship target of £750 million to raise the £2 billion of private funding needed to stage the Games and will travel to the Beijing Olympics, which open next week, more advanced at this stage in raising money than any other previous host city.

 

Nortel will be responsible for providing BT, the communications service partner, with the equipment to enable secure and robust wide area networks, wireless local area networks, call centre and fixed telephony infrastructure which London 2012 requires to stage the Games. 

 

London 2012’s communications will support over 205 international sporting organisations, 20,000 worldwide media, nine million spectators, and over four billion television viewers of the London Games. 

 

Besides Nortel and BT, the London 2012 technology team will also include Atos Origin and Samsung, who are International Olympic Committee TOP sponsors.

 

Sebastian Coe, the chairman of London 2012, said: “As we head to Beijing, I’m thrilled to have another world-class partner on board. Nortel will be a great partner, and, as well as bringing ‘best in class’ products to the table, will be supporting our sustainability commitments and our education programme too. 

 

"We are counting on Nortel with their Olympic Games experience and breadth of expertise for mission-critical projects to ensure successful delivery of our Games requirements.

 

"Commercially, we are in great shape, with four years to go we are in the unprecedented position of having raised over half of our domestic sponsorship targets already.”

 

Mike Zafirovski, the president and chief executive of Nortel, said: “London 2012 will be the Games for a connected world - connecting people in revolutionary ways and enriching the Olympic and Paralympic experience by bringing people closer to the Games than ever before. 

 

"It will be an evolution of the Games and provide an online immersive environment where athletes and spectators can share their Olympic and Paralympic memories instantaneously.

 

“The network infrastructure is fundamental to the Games and critical to the delivery of its communications services. 

 

"Fresh from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, our team will be experienced in providing the level of passion, support and expertise required to help deliver the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London in 2012.”

 

In addition to EDF Energy, BT and BP, Nortel also becomes London 2012’s fourth sustainability partner and will work with London 2012 and partners to reduce the environmental impacts of hosting the Games. 

 

Nortel will add value to the 2012 Sustainability agenda by reducing the carbon footprint of the products they supply for the Games and driving energy efficiency in the workplace, it is claimed.

 

Nortel has also committed to contributing to London 2012’s Education Programme by providing resources and training to students across the UK .