Communications market research firm Infonetics Research launched a new North America Business VoIP Services Leadership Matrix that analyzes and ranks the top service providers in the VoIP business services market.

"In the aggressive North American business VoIP services market, Verizon Business stands out as the market leader in both IP Centrex and IP connectivity services. Still, in this highly competitive market, a number of providers, such as New Global Telecom and Cbeyond, are finding success in offering compelling solutions for businesses," said Diane Myers, Infonetics Research's Directing Analyst for Service Provider VoIP and IMS.

Businesses and government agencies will immediately be able to take advantage of the latest certifications of Verizon Business' VoIP and contact center services with Avaya's complete line of equipment and software.

The two companies have completed certifications of Verizon IP Contact Center suite of services and Verizon IP Trunking with Avaya Communication Manager 5.1.1/SES 5.1.1 and Avaya Communication Manager Branch to enable the most current capabilities of both companies across Verizon Business' complete suite of VoIP and Contact Center Services.

Texas A&M University faculty, students and administrators will benefit from the reliability and flexibility of advanced communications services provided by Verizon Business. Under a three-year, $20 million renewal of its master services agreement, Verizon Business will provide traditional voice and data network services, cabling, and managed services. Under separate agreements, Verizon Business will also migrate the majority of Texas A&M's operations to VoIP while also providing the university with advanced audio-conferencing services.

Verizon Business will provide a range of local voice and data services to federal agencies in five Mid-Atlantic states under a new agreement, valued at as much as $120.8 million, with the U.S. General Services Administration.

The agreement, known as the Mid-Atlantic Local Services Acquisition contract, covers three years and four renewable option years. Under terms of the deal, the GSA and other federal agencies in the Mid-Atlantic region -- which covers Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia -- can immediately buy local voice and data services. They include Centrex, ISDN services, network-based voice messaging, private line data services, and related managed and professional services.

In a dynamic move sure to rattle devotees of plain old home phones, Verizon Wireless will introduce the new Verizon Hub on Feb. 1. Only Verizon Wireless can launch a new touch screen home phone system designed to replace old-style home phones with a souped-up home communications system, bridging wireline and wireless connectivity in one simple service, that runs on any broadband connection – whether supplied by Verizon FiOS Internet or DSL or any other high-speed service provider.

Students, teachers and parents in the Sherman Independent School District in North Texas are leveraging the power of advanced communications in and out of the classroom, using new services from Verizon Business. The services will be provided under a new agreement that expands the company’s decade-long relationship with the district, which is located about 60 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, near the Oklahoma border. The Sherman ISD serves about 6,100 students at 12 locations.

Verizon Business is currently completing the installation of a new VoIP platform and is deploying wireless LANS for each school campus to expand the district’s communications capability and reach. The new services are provided via the district’s existing high-capacity Ethernet network, which also carries the district’s Internet, data and voice services.

Consumers looking to cut costs without sacrificing satisfaction for Internet, television, and telephone service should consider bundling with Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-verse. In Consumer Reports' latest survey of major telecom providers and bundled services, featured in the February issue, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse, whose networks are fiber-optic based, were the most consistently satisfying providers for their Internet, television, and telephone services.

Enterprise customers will be able to get a bigger bang for their VoIP buck by leveraging several enhancements to Verizon Business' leading global VoIP portfolio.

New capabilities announced Thursday (Dec. 4) include:

• A new Verizon VoIP Interoperability Lab where customers can test drive the compatibility of their premises equipment with Verizon's VoIP or IP Contact Center products.
• Certification of an additional Nortel IP PBX for Verizon's IP Trunking offering.
• Availability in Europe of automatic call rerouting for VoIP customers, to provide business-continuity benefits unavailable in a traditional voice-communications environment.

Wholesale customers now have more choices when they purchase Verizon Business' Advanced Toll Free service. Verizon Business is adding an IP termination service, available immediately on a limited basis, to the company's switchless-termination and dedicated-termination toll free services, which use traditional telephony technology.

Wholesale telecommunication providers sell each segment of a telephone call -- access, transport and termination -- individually.

Verizon customers who make frequent calls from their home phone to other countries can now add the Verizon International Single Rate plan to their service and get great rates for up to 500 minutes of calling a month.

Customers with a Verizon Freedom voice plan can add the International Single Rate plan for $10 per month for 300 minutes (five hours) or $15 per month for 500 minutes (more than eight hours). Verizon Freedom Essentials is a common component of Verizon's bundled offerings of voice, broadband Internet and video services.

Customers who do not have a Verizon Freedom voice plan can enroll in the International Single Rate plan for $14.99 per month for 300 minutes or $19.99 per month for 500 minutes.

Verizon wholesale customers can now enjoy quicker service turn-up, simplified network configuration, expanded calling options and increased flexibility when ordering. These benefits are provided by Verizon Business' newly introduced SIP Gateway Outbound Service.

This latest addition to the company's VoIP product suite uses virtual rather than traditional physical trunking, enabling faster initiation of service, faster changes in capacity and faster long-distance call processing.

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.

Verizon Business wholesale customers now can take advantage of new enhancements to traditional voice and VoIP call records, providing greater granularity of call information. Wholesale customers can gain additional detail about the costs of a call for their international termination services, enabling added control over expenses. These rating enhancements take into account the rising number of international vendors and provide increased granularity of costs related to international mobile termination and special charges within specific geographic regions.

A new on-demand networking service that enables Verizon Business IP Trunking customers to improve the efficiency of their VoIP networks has been recognized by Technology Marketing Corporation's publication INTERNET TELEPHONY as a 2008 TMC Labs Innovation Award winner.

The Verizon Burstable Enterprise Shared Trunks (BEST) service enables IP Trunking customers in the U.S. to use idle VoIP trunk capacity in one location to accommodate an increase in traffic from another location. The BEST service capability helps customers better manage their local and long-distance traffic by sharing capacity on demand. This offering, introduced in December 2007, is currently available in 350 U.S. metropolitan markets to customers with select IP Trunking plans.

Verizon Business is expanding and strengthening its unified communications services to help multinational companies, faced with dramatically rising travel costs, collaborate better and improve their business processes.

Unified communications uses Internet protocol networks to integrate various systems, media, devices and applications, allowing for more effective and efficient communications. At the NXTcomm'08 trade show, Verizon Business is announcing the following new features and capabilities of the company's suite of unified communications and collaboration offerings:

• Expansion of the Verizon VoIP portfolio, which provides a foundation for unified communications, to four more European countries -- Spain, Italy, Ireland and Sweden -- bringing the total to 10.
• International expansion of the company's Integrated Communications Package, part of the UC platform, to 10 countries in Europe in local languages and integration with Verizon Conferencing for more efficient collaboration. The service was originally introduced to U.S. customers in August 2007.
• Employment of the newest Microsoft Office Live Meeting platform for Verizon Net Conferencing, including a redesigned interface and support for live video. In addition, Verizon Business is introducing enhanced Web-based tools to better manage conference calls.