Verizon Enhances Its Popular Ethernet Services Beginning in Two Markets

NEW YORK - Last year, Verizon's Ethernet service grew by 50 percent as more and more large businesses and governments chose it to support bandwidth-intensive applications at a lower cost. Now Verizon is rolling out with three new class-of-service options to control data traffic -- basic data, priority data or real-time communications -- to large businesses in New York City and Washington, D.C. The service will be expanded to additional states throughout the year.

Ethernet, the predominant technology in local area networks (LAN), is now experiencing double-digit growth in metro and long-distance networks, according to IDC analysts. They also expect the service to grow at a 26 percent rate through 2007.

Verizon customers Loyola College in Maryland and Virginia Mason Medical Center use Ethernet to support the increasing electronic information sharing demands that are fueling growth in education and health care. With Verizon's new services, customers will have even more options.

Verizon's new Ethernet class-of-service options will enable customers to converge their voice and data applications (such as voice over Internet protocol) and desktop. These options are designed to allow for service-level guarantees that will be implemented at a later date.

"Ethernet is a popular service because it can grow along with our customers," said Michael Tighe, director of Verizon's Ethernet product portfolio. "Businesses are increasingly migrating their networks to Ethernet from a frame relay architecture that's less flexible. That's part of the reason for last year's red-hot growth."

According to Tighe, large businesses' bandwidth needs are growing 10 percent to 20 percent a year and for the first time, Verizon is selling more 100 Mbps (megabits per second) Ethernet service than 10 Mbps service.

Loyola College in Maryland
Loyola College in Maryland is a Verizon Ethernet customer that recently boosted its service to add more bandwidth and speed. Loyola CIO John McFadden said, "Ethernet is a great value. We can get double the speed of an ATM connection at about the same price. Plus, the service is easier to troubleshoot. It enables us to work seamlessly across multiple campuses as if the students, faculty, staff and students are all in one building. And, probably most important, it is scalable so that we have capacity to grow."

Virginia Mason Medical Center of Seattle
With Verizon's help, Virginia Mason Medical Center is able to make its MRI and CT services mobile in the greater Seattle area. "With Ethernet's big pipes, we were able to increase our bandwidth power to 250 Mbps from 62 Mbps," said Jim Sapienza, administrative director of radiology at Virginia Mason Medical Center. "The dual benefits of Ethernet are that patients can be served in their community with the same speed and image quality as a fixed CT or MRI site. We can offer the fastest possible diagnosis using Ethernet by eliminating a lot of travel, not only for radiologists and patients, but also movement of information such as patient medical history and film-based images. Images are sent by high speed Ethernet or DSL to computers in the doctors' offices to complement the radiologists' electronic report."

Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group manages the design, operation and maintenance of end-to-end integrated network solutions for large business, government and education customers across the United States. With over 7,800 employees in 35 states, Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group offers a complete range of basic and advanced communications products and services to meet the voice, video, data and IP-related needs of its customers. In addition, over 5,200 field operations personnel support enterprise customers nationwide. In the enterprise market, Verizon Select Services Inc. provides Verizon long-distance service. For more information on products and services available through Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group, visit www.verizon.com/enterprisesolutions.

Verizon Communications Inc.

With more than $71 billion in annual revenues, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon has a diverse work force of more than 214,000 in four business units: Domestic Telecom provides customers based in 28 states with wireline and other telecommunications services, including broadband. Verizon Wireless owns and operates the nation's most reliable wireless network, serving 47.4 million voice and data customers across the United States. Information Services operates directory publishing businesses and provides electronic commerce services. International includes wireline and wireless operations and investments, primarily in the Americas and Europe. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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