Following a string of recent long-distance regulatory approvals, Verizon today announced a new initiative called Enterprise Advance, to offer large companies, governments and others, data services that stretch beyond their local territories to affiliates or subsidiaries in other regions around the U.S. Enterprise Advance services include network management and data storage, business recovery, security, remote access, voice and data networking.
“With our most recent long-distance approval in Virginia, Verizon can provide long-distance voice and data service to roughly 90 percent of our customers, and the three remaining approvals are just a few months away. This means we can now offer the kinds of long-distance data services these businesses need and want,” says Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg. Verizon expects to receive long-distance approval for the rest of its service area by the end of the first quarter of 2003.
The company will offer its new services to the enterprise market comprised of Fortune 1000 corporations, government, and finance, education and healthcare entities.
The new enterprise services include transparent LAN/Gigabit, fast packet and IP services, optical networking and voice switching enhancements. With these, Verizon for the first time will offer a complete range of products and services with national service and support capabilities, becoming a one-stop, single point-of-contact provider for enterprise customers coast-to-coast, according to the company. Enterprise Advance will be based on an optical and IP backbone offering customers “any-to-any” transmission, a network that is indifferent to the protocols used in systems at either end of a transmission, allowing firms to communicate seamlessly across the Verizon network.
Business and government customers in the I-95 corridor, the region in the Northeast reaching from Boston to Virginia will be the first focus for Enterprise Advance. The company will then build out its IP backbone to further connect its national service territory in locations like Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle and Tampa. Over the past 16 months, Verizon has invested to expand the company’s networks in Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles to compete directly with the dominant local carriers.
