Verizon Now Selling Wireless Office Connections to Small Businesses in Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regions

NEW YORK -- Small businesses that need to expand their local area networks (LANs), move to a new location or accommodate a flexible workforce can now take advantage of high-speed wireless LANs using wireless fidelity (WiFi) technology offered by Verizon.

"Wireless LANs are a breakthrough advance for businesses, particularly those that operate in flexible working environments," said Rahman Karriem, executive director-product management for Verizon. "Businesses can quickly install or expand their office networks without disrupting the office for rewiring -- and at installation and maintenance prices that are significantly lower than those for hard-wired networks.

"In addition, wireless LANs enable workers to be much more productive. They can leave their cubicles or workstations, go to the cafeteria or a conference room and still remain connected to their corporate network resources."

Verizon launched its wireless LAN product, known as WLAN, in the Boston area late last fall. This week, the company is making the service available in the following additional Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions:

• New York -- New York City and Nassau and Suffolk counties

• New Jersey -- Newark, Jersey City and Trenton, and Bergen, Passaic, Middlesex, Somerset, Monmouth and Ocean counties

• Maryland -- Baltimore

• Massachusetts -- Springfield

• Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the Lancaster-Reading-Allentown area

• Washington, D.C. -- and the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs

• Virginia -- Norfolk, Petersburg, Richmond and Virginia Beach

Businesses can purchase a wireless local area network as a stand-alone service or integrate it with network transport services, such as T1, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame relay services. Verizon will design and install the customer's network and provide technical support.

Other benefits include:

• Speed: At speeds of up to 11 Mbps (802.11b) or up to 54 Mbps (802.11a and 802.11g), wireless LANs easily handle large spreadsheets, graphics programs, presentation software, computer-aided design files and other applications that generate files measured in megabytes. Networks comply with either the WiFi (IEEE 802.11b) or WiFi5 (IEEE 802.11a and the soon-to-be-released IEEE 802.11g) wireless standards using the ORiNOCO wireless LAN product line from Proxim Corp.

• Flexibility: Companies can expand or change their networks without disruptions or significant investments in new wiring. Workstations can easily be added to the network and relocated to accommodate changing work-group configurations such as seasonal staff fluctuations.

• Efficiency: Wireless LAN-equipped PCs and laptops can be more easily deployed because there is no fixed wiring required.

• Support: Verizon's wireless LANs are integrated with Verizon's data network, which is monitored and maintained round the clock.

• Costs: The costs of wiring an office are often a significant portion of the expense when small businesses reconfigure existing networks or install new ones. In the past, such costs were prohibitive for many small companies -- particularly those with temporary workforces, sales teams that don't have permanent office space or rapidly growing staffs. Wireless LANs are an affordable option. Specific pricing depends on the number of users and the range of a company's operations. Installation charges vary, based on the network configuration.

Small or medium-sized businesses interested in learning more about Verizon's wireless LANs or in scheduling a site survey can contact their local Verizon account managers.

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon companies are the largest providers of wireline and wireless communications in the United States, with 135.8 million access line equivalents and 32.5 million Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon is also the largest directory publisher in the world. With more than $67 billion in annual revenues and 229,500 employees, Verizon's global presence extends to more than 30 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. For more information on Verizon, visit www.verizon.com.

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