TORONTO - June 23, 2003 - Canada Life, one of the largest and most profitable insurance companies in Canada, today announced significant productivity benefits and return on investment from its integrated voice and data infrastructure, which is based on Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) Communications technology.

Canada Life currently has 600 Cisco IP phones deployed in its Toronto, London, Burlington, Montreal and Puerto Rico offices. The rest of the Toronto campus, which includes an additional 2,500 phones, will be fully transitioned by fall 2003. Canada Life plans to eventually convert the entire organization to a unified environment.

Cisco IP telephony and its ability to seamlessly integrate with data allows Canada Life to use its phone systems to provide a wide-range of companion applications on its voice system. Those include unified messaging, contact centres, personal calendars, meeting schedulers, service alerts and information databases, among others.

"The benefits derived from Cisco IP Communications solutions are a significant milestone in Canada Life's ongoing commitment to deliver superior services and customer care," said Scott Martin, Director of Global Network Services at Canada Life. "By using Cisco technology and solutions, we will continue to strengthen our leadership and enhance our customers' experience."

"By combining its commitment to customer service with Cisco's state-of-the-art IP communications technology, Canada Life is further enhancing customer service and improving overall business processes," said Pierre-Paul Allard, President of Cisco Systems Canada. "Cisco IP telephony and IP contact centre technology solutions put the customer at the center of activity to ensure each interaction is maximized to foster loyalty and profitability."

According to Martin, prior to installing the unified IP infrastructure, the Canada Life network was comprised of disparate technologies that were proving quite costly for the company. The company's first step was to partner with Bell Canada and Cisco Systems Canada to develop a high-speed national wide area network (WAN). Based on Bell Canada's VPNe (Virtual Private Network Enterprise) service, the all-IP backbone delivered a 200 per cent increase in bandwidth at a 40 per cent cost reduction. The infrastructure also enabled the delivery of dynamic new services, such as IP communications.

"Our legacy voice system really limited our communications options," he added. "Our new
IP infrastructure provides us with a robust foundation that is allowing us to easily deliver productivity applications all the way to users' desktops." he said.

Canada Life soon recognized that the "killer app" for IP telephony was not one single application but the ability to provide a multitude of personalized applications over a phone system, which previously could do little more than ring. "Initially, we were attracted by the cost savings but we soon came to realize the productivity and flexibility benefits were just as significant."

Martin says most of the cost savings will be realized through the elimination of charges for "adds, moves and changes," simplified network management and the reduction of long-distance charges on calls between national and international offices.

"We knew this technology was ready for prime time and we're so confident about our IP communications system that we decided to overlay another application on top of voice – a Cisco IP Contact Centre (IPCC) solution. We understood that by providing a unified technology infrastructure, we could deliver better customer service and improve organizational efficiencies," said Martin.

Cisco's contact centre offerings are intelligent software call routing solutions, which introduce the concept of a Customer Interaction Network through distributed IP-based call control, agent location independence and full multi-channel reporting and services.

Canada Life has already implemented 70 contact centre agents utilizing Cisco IPCC Enterprise Edition in its London, Ontario location, as well as 7 virtual agents using the technology in Montreal. The plan is to eventually have all of its call centres using IPCC Enterprise Edition in an effort to achieve a blended communication environment, reduce operational costs and establish a new benchmark in customer satisfaction.

"Cisco IPCC Enterprise Edition represents the next generation of customer care for Canada Life, providing not only superb customer service capabilities but also significant cost-savings for the company," said Martin.

The new Cisco technology will enable Canada Life to extend customer service capabilities to include access to real time and historical data across the entire organization, giving the business a more integrated and collaborative approach to customer satisfaction.

Canada Life's contact centre solution includes a fully redundant Cisco CallManager to provide call processing, Cisco Internet Service Nodes for call treatment and queuing and IPCC Enterprise Edition to provide the contact routing and scripting functionality. Additionally, Canada Life deployed voice gateways comprised of Cisco AS5400 connected directly to their Mobile Switching Centres and Cisco IP telephony using high-end Cisco 7960 phones equipped with agent headsets.

About Canada Life

The Canada Life Assurance Company, Canada's first domestic life insurance company founded in 1847, has total assets under administration in excess of $65 billion. Headquartered in Toronto, the Company operates in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Germany, Brazil, the Caribbean and Hong Kong. Canada Life Financial Corporation, established in 1999, is the holding company for The Canada Life Assurance Company and is traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CL" and the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CLU".

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at www.cisco.com.

About Cisco Systems Canada

Cisco Systems Canada Co. has offices across Canada dedicated to customer support, sales, and service. In addition, Cisco Systems has a significant research and development centre in Ottawa, Ontario. Additional information about Cisco Systems Canada is available at www.cisco.com/ca.

Press Contacts:

Gareth Pettigrew
Strategic/Ampersand (for Cisco)
416-961-5595 ext. 428
gareth@stratamp.com

Willa Black
Cisco Systems Canada
416-306-7732
Pager: 1-800-68-CISCO
wblack@cisco.com