Verizon Business Increases Network Speeds, Performance to Stay Ahead of Customers' IP Growth Needs

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. -- Verizon Business reinforced its commitment to customer demand in 2007 by bolstering the capacity, speed, resiliency and efficiency of its worldwide network. The Verizon Business global IP network consists of 485,000 route miles and serves more than 2,700 cities in 150 countries.

Globalization continued to drive customer demand for IP, Ethernet and managed services for Verizon Business. Through the third quarter, customer sales from these strategic services grew at more than 28 percent year over year.

"Our world-class network is the foundation for offering secure communications and IT solutions to our customers," said Fred Briggs, Verizon Business executive vice president of network and technology. "The Verizon Business network is backed by stringent service level agreements and we continue to invest and transform our global IP network to meet the evolving needs of our business and government customers worldwide.

"We're growing network capacity while streamlining network elements to enhance performance and we're improving on our already exceptional network reliability while reducing network latency."

In response to growing bandwidth demand by Verizon Business customers, the company successfully planned and completed the industry's first field trial of 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) optical transmission in November. The test was conducted on a section of Verizon Business' ultra long haul system between Tampa, Fla., and Miami and carried a live video feed on one 100 Gbps wavelength for the full 312-mile distance. Government and enterprise customers, such as financial and medical institutions, will benefit from the higher speeds and greater network efficiencies that 100 Gbps provide.

Looking toward higher circuit speeds demanded by customers in 2007 the company quadrupled speeds from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps on selected routes of its U.S. IP and MPLS backbones, using Alcatel-Lucent's 1625 LambdaXtreme Transport. Deploying 40 Gbps technology benefits Verizon Business customers by increasing not only the capacity but also the performance of the network, in particular lower latency and reduced jitter. Driven by bandwidth-hungry customer applications such as video, Gigabit Ethernet and Internet traffic worldwide, Verizon Business will continue to deploy 40 Gbps on key routes.

This year Verizon Business marked the halfway point in its deployment of the 50,000-mile, all-optical ultra long haul (ULH) U.S. network. By adding 6,000 miles and covering 15 more routes, the company is delivering on its plan to leverage the benefits of ULH, which allows Verizon Business customers to seamlessly adopt bandwidth-intensive business applications like Web services, multimedia content distribution, grid computing, real-time imaging and storage networking. ULH also allows Verizon Business to extend the signal reach beyond 1,200 miles without regenerating the signal.

The company also deployed ULH equipment in 2007 on the core backbone network routes between Verizon Business' main European network hubs in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Brussels, offering the first 2,000 miles of ULH transport in the Verizon Business European network to provide the company's global customers the benefit of ULH.

Through 2007, the company continued to prepare for the launch of the 11,185-mile-long Trans-Pacific Express (TPE), a new undersea cable that will provide direct high-speed Internet routes between the United States and China. Customers will be able to access the cable system at wavelengths of up to 10 Gbps, not available with current undersea cable systems. In addition to greater speed and capacity, TPE also will offer enhanced reliability by adding another major path to the fast growing Asia Pacific region. Verizon Business is the only U.S.-based carrier involved in the TPE's initial consortium, which includes carriers from China, Taiwan and Korea. Completion is scheduled for the third quarter of 2008.

This year Verizon Business began implementing mesh architecture on its major undersea cable network that crosses the Pacific Ocean. Mesh architecture is superior to the previously designed ring architecture because customer traffic in a mesh design can be programmed to take the shortest route between two points rather than traveling in a ring configuration. Network traffic can be quickly and easily diverted around sections of the network that might be damaged or experiencing traffic congestion, allowing customer traffic to quickly reach its destination without interruption. Verizon Business was the first carrier to deploy a trans-Atlantic mesh architecture in 2006.

Verizon Business continued its aggressive deployment of converged packet architecture (CPA) in 2007 with 17 cities added in the U.S., bringing the total to 46 cities. Nineteen cities were added in Europe and five cities in the Asia-Pacific region. CPA allows customers to move seamlessly from the older time division multiplexing (TDM) hierarchy to a packet-based technology. CPA also uses virtual connections, which means a single connection replaces multiple connections, resulting in improved efficiency for customers.

In 2007, Verizon Business significantly expanded the global availability of its leading Ethernet capabilities, enabling even more enterprise customers to benefit from high speed, secure and easily scalable connectivity. Verizon Business' Ethernet access to IP services is now available in almost 40 countries worldwide - nearly double the availability since the start of the year.

Ethernet access to Verizon Private IP has been extended to customers in Canada, Latin America and into China and India, and European availability has been enhanced. In Latin America, access is now available to Verizon Business customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Columbia; and in Europe, to customers in the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal and Slovakia.

The Verizon Business global IP network was recognized for the ninth consecutive year as the most connected Internet backbone network by TeleGeography, a research division of PriMetrica Inc. Verizon Business customers who depend on the company's global IP network to be accessible everywhere will find that the Verizon Business network is available at any time of the day or night and capable of carrying large amounts of IP traffic quickly and reliably around the globe.

The TeleGeography ranking is based on the number of autonomous system (AS) network connections the company has. The AS ranking is a measure of the connectedness of an IP network to the rest of the public Internet. In other words, the ranking demonstrates the closeness of a network to the rest of the Internet as determined by the number of unique networks that a carrier's IP network can reach directly.

Verizon Business is aggressively moving to the next-generation Internet protocol with plans to globally deploy IPv6 on the company's public IP network. IPv6 offers more Internet addresses than the current IPv4 standard. This upgrade is in response to the growing need from Verizon Business customers for more IP address to accommodate additional mobile devices as well as "smart" appliances that have the capability to receive remote communications. In addition, the federal government has ordered its agencies to become IPv6-capable by June 2008. Verizon Business provides cutting-edge voice, data, wireless, security and Internet services to more than 135 U.S. government agencies around the world.

Verizon also implemented a range of initiatives to conserve energy and protect environmental resources. Earlier this year, in celebration of Earth Day, Verizon Business teamed up with Computershare and American Forests to plant a tree for each large business or government customer that chooses electronic billing over paper. This program is modeled on a successful eTree program Verizon implemented for shareholders opting for electronic versions of annual reports, proxies and other shareholder communication materials.

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.

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