Verizon Business Extends Managed Local Area Network Service to EMEA and Asia-Pacific

End-to-End Management Solution Enhances Network Performance; Allows Customers to Focus on Core Business

Verizon Business’ managed local area network (LAN) service is now available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, in addition to the United States.

Verizon Managed LAN services enable customers to fully or partially outsource the management of their corporate networks. The managed service provides a seamless environment between the corporate headquarters’ network and its extended network that connects partners, customers, remote employees and suppliers.

Multinationals receive comprehensive network management experience, expertise, resources and capabilities -- locally and globally. The key benefit for enterprises is a seamless view of WAN (wide area network) and LAN environments that can enhance performance and reliability, while reducing overall network operations costs. It also reduces the risks involved with deploying converged networks and emerging IP-based applications such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).

Dustin Kehoe, principal analyst of Current Analysis, said: “The LAN is just as important as the WAN. The end-to-end customer solution enabled by Verizon Managed LAN will be very attractive to the enterprise customer, and makes Verizon Business a stronger managed services supplier.”

Mike Marcellin, vice president, global product marketing for Verizon Business, said: “The LAN is becoming an increasingly business-critical and performance-sensitive environment. Our global customers are increasingly looking to bring the same high levels of performance and reliability they have come to expect in the extended enterprise to the corporate headquarters. By outsourcing LAN management to a trusted third party, and tightly integrating it with the WAN, customers are able to enhance their overall network performance and availability and better support their overall business needs.”

Verizon Managed LAN Service

Verizon Managed LAN offers a comprehensive, yet flexible range of LAN management capabilities that can be tailored to suit each customer’s specific business needs, and are backed by some of the industry’s most stringent service level commitments. Verizon Business procures, installs, configures and tests LAN-related equipment and proactively manages the performance and usage of the LAN so businesses can focus on what they do best -- serving their customers. The service uses Cisco Catalyst switches.

Verizon Business’ award-winning IMPACT network management platform offers proactive monitoring to help ensure network continuity, reduce downtime and enable more effective bandwidth management. Access to the Verizon Business Customer Center portal enables real-time tracking of the managed-service implementation process, project status, inventory tracking, contacts, change management requests and more.

Verizon Business now manages more than 250,000 customer communication devices worldwide, including more than 65,000 LAN switches, and manages more than 4,000 customer networks in 142 countries. The company was recognized by Gartner in the Leaders quadrant for “Global Network Service Providers in 2007.”¹ It is also the recipient of the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Customer Service Leadership Award for Managed Services and the 2006 Cisco Systems Global Managed Services Partner of the Year Award.