AT&T Receives Education Market Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has announced that Frost & Sullivan, a global growth-consulting company, has awarded AT&T the 2007 Education Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award for Telecom Services.

The Education Vertical Market Penetration Leadership Award is presented each year to the company that has been the most effective in bringing a wide range of scalable — and technologically advanced — communications solutions to the K-12 and higher education segments in the U.S.

For the second year in a row, Frost & Sullivan has highlighted AT&T’s success in this market. Frost & Sullivan specifically noted AT&T’s commitment to establish dedicated teams for both the K-12 and higher education sectors and to provide education end-users with complete and customized solutions through strategic alliances with hardware and software vendors.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the total estimated spending for telecom equipment and services in the education segment in 2006 was $4.2 billion, and the amount is expected to reach $6.95 billion by 2011. Of the money spent in 2006, almost 52 percent of telecom service spending by educational institutions was for wireline data services, including high speed data transport over fiber-optic networks. This percentage is projected to reach 64 percent by 2011 because of the increased demand for such applications as videoconferencing, streaming video, virtual field trips, network security, disaster-recovery planning and the need to access other educational Web portals.

In addition, more K-12 and higher-education institutions are using fiber-optic solutions because of the cost benefits and end-user advantages of a unified and converged network platform.

’We are honored that Frost & Sullivan has recognized our efforts to provide advanced solutions to schools and campuses across the country for the second year in a row,“ said John Regan Jr., vice president, AT&T Business Marketing. ’The education sector has always been an important market for AT&T because of our commitment to providing solutions that improve student achievement and promote staff development.”

AT&T has delivered advanced communications technologies, such as fiber-optic networks for faster Internet speeds and greater bandwidth, fully managed Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions for faster data transmission and advanced voice network solutions to manage voice communications equipment, systems and services to a wide range of educational institutions,“ said Roopa Shree, senior industry analyst for Information and Communication Technologies with Frost & Sullivan.”

Frost & Sullivan cited recent AT&T installations at Dallas County Community College District, three Northwestern Business College campuses and Irvine Unified School District in California.

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.