Verizon Business has earned the 2008 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Line Strategy for its leadership in developing and delivering hosted IP telephony and voice-over-IP access services. The award is presented by the leading analyst firm each year to a company that has demonstrated the most insight into customer needs and product demands.

The award also singles out Verizon Business for working with customers to offer hybrid solutions -- combinations of services from the company's VoIP portfolio that enable customers to create a single, network-based solution to meet their business needs. The award notes the particular benefit this versatility presents to customers with more complex networks.

In selecting Verizon Business, Frost & Sullivan also credited the company for offering a unified communications platform that integrates voice communications. Verizon Business' Integrated Communications Package -- available for customers of Hosted IP Centrex, part of Verizon Business' VoIP portfolio -- provides a dynamic hub where employees can access voice mail, control incoming and outgoing calls, manage their online presence, send text messages, and synchronize contacts and calendars. Ideal for managing communications and enhancing collaboration and productivity, Integrated Communications Package is available in the U.S. and will soon be available in Europe.

Moreover, Frost & Sullivan cited the wide array of professional and managed services available to Verizon Business customers. Verizon Business' professional services experts are instrumental in helping organizations navigate the complexity of moving from the traditional legacy voice world to voice over IP. In addition, the company provides a complementary set of managed network, managed hosting and managed services offerings, managing and maintaining more than 4,000 customer networks and over 260,000 communications devices around the world.

Finally, Verizon Business' service level agreements and a wide range of customer premises equipment options and vendors were named as contributing factors for Frost & Sullivan's recognition.