verizon business

As part of its ongoing commitment to support U.S. troops domestically and abroad, Verizon Business is again providing free phone calls during this holiday season for U.S. Armed Forces personnel stationed in Iraq.

For the fifth consecutive year, Verizon Business will provide the calls for Iraq-based military personnel, from Nov. 21 through Nov. 28 and from Dec. 21 through Jan. 3. The calls home are made possible through a Verizon Business state-of-the-art mobile communications facility that was outfitted with phones and deployed to Iraq.

“Hearing the voice of a loved one can go a long way to bolster the spirits during the holidays,” said Susan Zeleniak, vice president of federal markets for Verizon Business. “The women and men in the U.S. armed forces make sacrifices every day, and Verizon Business has made it a tradition to help the troops stay connected with their loved ones at home during the holidays.”

Verizon Business, as a leading communications provider to the federal government, makes technology, resources and employee support available to military personnel and their families around the world throughout the year.

Verizon Business also is supporting the USO of Metropolitan Washington, by hosting a Verizon Business Phone Home for the Holidays program Dec. 8 at Fort Belvoir, Va., in conjunction with the USO’s holiday event. Verizon Business will deploy one of its mobile emergency communications vehicles to allow troops and their families to make free local, long-distance and international calls as well as send e-mails.

Verizon Business is a Partner at the USO Gateway Lounge at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. In addition, the company has teamed up with the USO of Metropolitan Washington as the Premier Partner of the new USO Lounge at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and as a Partner at the new lounge at Washington Dulles International Airport. The Dulles lounge opened earlier this year, and the Reagan airport lounge will open soon. Verizon Business is the first USO-Metro Partner to provide financial support to all three area airport USO lounges.

In addition to providing funding for the lounges, Verizon Business also provides them with free phone calling anywhere in the world via wireless phones using Verizon Business voice-over-Internet protocol service.

Starting in 2008, Verizon Business will be even better positioned to deliver network capacity across Europe for high-bandwidth applications like video and advanced business services with an optical network supported by Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] equipment. The equipment purchase supports 10G services as well as emerging 40G services and will allow Verizon** Business to deliver greater capacity to its large enterprise customers to meet their increasing bandwidth requirements.

The ultra long haul (ULH) optical network will carry a large portion of the Verizon Business European network traffic and will be deployed across multiple countries including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, the next-generation, ultra-long haul optical network allows Verizon Business to meet the growing bandwidth demand while simplifying network operations.

“Verizon Business has taken a bold, forward-looking approach to building out its network,” said Philippe Morin, president, Metro Ethernet Networks, Nortel. “It provides the ability to deliver the bandwidth capacity that service providers and businesses require today and the critical ability to evolve seamlessly to 40G when needed. Of course the true beneficiaries are the end-users who will be able to take advantage of future high-bandwidth services and applications to meet their growing business needs throughout Europe.”

Nortel Global Services is assisting with the deployment, providing turn-key installation services for Verizon Business and will include support for integration into existing management systems and Network Operation Center facilities.

The Verizon Business optical network is based on the Optical Multiservice Edge 6500, a next-generation optical convergence platform. The solution allows service providers to deliver high-growth, high-bandwidth broadband services with quickest time to revenue and one of the lowest deployment and operational costs. The solution also features Nortel’s unique electronic Dynamically Compensating Optics (eDCO), which simplifies networking by extending 40G wavelengths over thousands of kilometers without requiring dispersion compensation modules, greatly simplifying the network.

Verizon Business is also using the Common Photonic Layer (CPL) which enables the migration to a more agile, adaptive, all optical intelligent network. Also part of the solution, Nortel’s Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexing (ROADM) technology provides operational simplicity and network agility for the easy addition and routing of new services, resulting in a more cost-effective, reliable infrastructure. In addition, the Nortel Optical Network Manager will provide the required operations administration and management for the network, advanced network and service management and network planning tools for end-to-end wavelength layer management.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - To meet the growing demand for faster, better performance, Verizon Business is quadrupling the standard speed on its backbone network circuits connecting major U.S. cities.

Verizon Business has deployed one of the first router-to-router 40Gbps (OC-768) circuits carrying live traffic using Juniper Networks high-performance T-series core routers. These fully functional 40Gbps (gigabits per second) interconnections between backbone routers are carrying production Internet traffic between Washington D.C. and Chicago as well as production voice, data and video traffic on Verizon’s multi protocol label switching (MPLS) network between Washington D.C. and New York City.

Verizon Business plans to deploy additional 40Gbps transmission spans and circuits on its U.S. domestic network through the end of the year and into 2008. The most common standard deployed today for high-speed circuits is 10Gbps.

“Moving from 10Gbps to 40Gbps demonstrates Verizon Business’s commitment to meet our customer needs and invest in state-of-the art technology that takes our backbone infrastructure to the next level,” said Fred Briggs, executive vice president of network operations and technology for Verizon Business. “Aggregating IP traffic onto one 40Gbps wavelength means not only higher traffic throughput, but lower latency and reduced jitter, which translates into enhanced performance and responsiveness for Verizon Business customers.”

Verizon’s FiOS success, explosion of Gigabit Ethernet customer access circuits, expansion of voice-over-IP services and rapid growth of Internet traffic around the world all continue to push the demand for faster routers and higher capacity in Verizon Business’s backbone.

“With the T-series and JUNOS software, we’re helping Verizon Business achieve its objectives of leading the industry in next-generation IP performance and leveraging IP/MPLS technology in the core of the network to best serve its customers,” said Kim Perdikou, executive vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Products Group, Juniper Networks. “As consumers continue to increase the adoption of broadband access, while at the same time requiring increased performance for high bandwidth applications, Juniper enables our customers to keep pace with escalating business requirements, while controlling costs as they scale.”

Juniper Networks T-series delivers the unique combination of advanced routing features, world-class IP/MPLS capabilities, as well as the reliability and scalability needed to make it an ideal platform for high-performance core applications. With TX Matrix technology, the T-series provides a seamless migration path to enable providers to scale to multi-terabit speeds. The T-series routing platforms provide a comprehensive range of fiber-optic and electrical transmission interfaces, including Ethernet, ATM, Channelized, SONET and serial interfaces.

Deploying the T-series with 40Gbps technology not only increases the performance of the Verizon Business network and its total capacity, but also helps the company control network equipment costs including installation, operations and maintenance.

About Verizon Business
Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), is a leading provider of advanced communications and information technology (IT) solutions to large business and government customers worldwide. Combining unsurpassed global network reach with advanced communications, security and other professional service capabilities, Verizon Business delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world. For more information, visit www.verizonbusiness.com.

About Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks, Inc. is the leader in high-performance networking. Juniper offers a high-performance network infrastructure that creates a responsive and trusted environment for accelerating the deployment of services and applications over a single network. This fuels high-performance businesses. Additional information can be found at www.juniper.net.

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Juniper Networks and the Juniper Networks logo are registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. JUNOS is a trademark of Juniper Networks, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services, today announced that Verizon Business has been named the company’s 2007 AlliancePartner of the Year based on revenue growth, performance and commitment to the sale of Avaya products and services.

One of three operating units of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Verizon Business delivers advanced Internet protocol (IP), data, voice and managed solutions to businesses and government agencies around the globe. The organization has more than 32,000 employees and offices in 75 countries across six continents.

“During 2007, Verizon Business fully integrated the Avaya portfolio into its own ordering systems and invested in a solid team of solutions architects who are experienced in our technology,” said Dave Johnson, senior vice president, Global Alliances and Channel Development, Avaya. “That investment has paid off in significant, double-digit growth in the sale of Avaya products and services, as well as in superior satisfaction ratings from customers.” 

The Avaya AlliancePartner Program promotes strategic relationships with world-class systems integrators and technology partners like Verizon Business who complement Avaya’s own strengths in IP telephony, contact centers, mobility, messaging and services. 

In addition to its Gold membership in the Avaya AlliancePartner Program, Verizon Business is a Platinum member of the Avaya DevConnect program – an initiative to promote the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of innovative solutions that are compatible with standards-based Avaya technologies.  The company has successfully compliance-tested its session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking services for interoperability with Avaya SIP Enablement Services.

The 2007 AlliancePartner of the Year award was presented to Verizon Business during Avaya’s recent Global Sales Conference in Nashville, Tenn.

About Avaya
Avaya delivers Intelligent Communications solutions that help companies transform their businesses to achieve marketplace advantage. More than 1 million businesses worldwide, including more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®, use Avaya solutions for IP Telephony, Unified Communications, Contact Centers and Communications-Enabled Business Processes. Avaya Global Services provides comprehensive service and support for companies, small to large. For more information visit the Avaya Web site: http://www.avaya.com. 

About Verizon Business
Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), is a leading provider of advanced communications and information technology (IT) solutions to large business and government customers worldwide. Combining unsurpassed global network reach with advanced communications, security and other professional service capabilities, Verizon Business delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world. For more information, visit www.verizonbusiness.com.