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Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - February 2, 2009 - Hosting provider, Internet services and ISP company, AT and T Inc., has reported new features for the AT and T Telepresence Solution, and the acquisition of Wi-Fi service provider Wayport, Inc., as well as a successful fourth quarter 2008 for AT and T Business Solutions (ABS).
The accomplishments, as well as key sales wins and enhancements to its business services portfolio, helped the business unit enter 2009 on firm footing. The enhancements to the AT and T Telepresence Solution, based on Cisco TelePresence technology, now provide unique multipoint functionality and highly secure intercompany capabilities that allow users at multiple locations and from different companies to connect with each other.
The new capabilities represent the latest milestone in ABS's efforts to provide customers with powerful and cost-effective collaboration tools while helping decrease costs associated with business travel. Also during the fourth quarter 2008, AT and T announced two acquisitions to expand its wireless mobility capabilities. The acquisition of Wayport added local Wi-Fi network management, emerging applications support and infrastructure expertise to its world-class communications capabilities.
The deal, which was completed in December 2008, brings the number of AT and T domestic hotspots to nearly 20,000 -- the most of any U.S. provider. Globally, it has more than 80,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. And by the end of the quarter, the business unit transitioned thousands of Starbucks company-operated stores in the U.S. to AT and T Wi-Fi service, strengthening the ability to personalize broadband access across devices and customer locations.
The company also said it had entered into an agreement to acquire Centennial Communications, a regional provider of wireless and wired communications services based in New Jersey. The transaction will enhance the company's wireless coverage for customers in largely rural areas of the Midwest and Southeast regions of the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
AT and T Hosting and Application Services expanded its global hosting footprint during the quarter with the opening of an internet data center (IDC) in Bangalore India -- its first in India -- and increased capacity in five additional markets including Dallas, Boston, Amsterdam, Singapore and Shanghai. The expansions in Amsterdam and Singapore were completed to augment the 'super IDCs' previously announced with AT and T Synaptic Hosting, a next- generation platform that creates a virtual IT infrastructure in which business customers can receive computing processing, services and support instantaneously and at scale.
ABS further strengthened its application services portfolio by rolling out a subscription-based Oracle PeopleSoft payroll and payroll tax solution for midsize businesses that combines the software with its business process outsourcing services, its innovative utility computing platform and its application management capabilities. Another highlight during the quarter involved the expansion of its global Ethernet footprint through the availability of its global virtual private LAN service (VPLS) into 14 countries in Europe and Asia.
The service, called AT and T OPT-E-WAN(SM), enables businesses to link multiple locations -- whether across the city or around the world -- with the ease and efficiency of a flat Ethernet wide area network. In addition to broad coverage in the U.S., the service is now available in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in Europe; and Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Japan in Asia Pacific. ABS also recorded significant sales wins in the fourth quarter, highlighted by a 10-year, $600 million agreement for network services with the state of Tennessee and a five-year contract with the state of Georgia, worth a projected $346 million, to provide managed voice and data services across state government agencies.
Ronald E. Spears, President and Chief Executive Officer, AT and T Business Solutions offered, ''Throughout 2008, ABS launched key transformational services such as our Digital Media Solutions, AT and T Telepresence Solution, Synaptic Hosting and Unified Communications. And by the fourth quarter, we added features that enable us to offer customers complete solutions in these critical areas. These enhancements, along with capabilities acquired through strategic alliances and acquisitions, have given us a strong platform for growth in 2009.''
ABS provides networking services and solutions for business customers and organizations globally. Its customers include every company listed in the Fortune 1000; large, medium, and small businesses; wholesale customers; and U.S. governmental agencies.
During the fourth quarter 2008, ABS made the following updates to its enterprise portfolio of services for business customers: Voice Over IP (VoIP) -- AT and T Voice DNA -- Site Survivability: AT and T VoIP Services now includes site survivability as an optional feature with AT and T Voice DNA. This feature provides customers with continuity of service in the event of a failure in their connectivity to the AT and T VoIP network, by routing off-site calls over the public switched telephone network. -- AT and T IP Flexible Reach Technical Assistance: The enhanced implementation of AT and T IP Flexible Reach gives customers optional project management, site readiness surveys and on-site installation services. -- IP Telephony and LAN Service Country Expansion: The business unit expanded the reach of this LAN and IP-PBX management service beyond the U.S. to include an additional 55 countries. -- AT and T IP Toll-Free Interoperability and Throughput Expansion: Four IP contact center vendors (Aspect, Avaya, Genesys and Nortel) successfully completed interoperability testing of their latest contact center solutions with AT and T IP Toll-Free services. Interoperability certification allows customers using solutions from a variety of suppliers to adopt session initiated protocol (SIP) based services faster, avoiding any disruption to their contact center applications.
AT and T VoIP Service now has an increased maximum concurrent call throughput, allowing up to 1,000 concurrent calls over a T3 connection. Customer Experience -- Unified Agreement for Billing: ABS launched a unified agreement to establish a common set of terms and conditions for all product portfolios worldwide. With the unified agreement, customers experience less paperwork and simpler and faster contracting. Enterprise Mobility -- Fleet Management Options: ABS enhanced its enterprise mobility portfolio to include a comprehensive suite of fleet-management suite of offerings with the addition of in-vehicle options through extended relationships with TeleNav and Xora.
These enhancements help businesses with mobile workers and mobile assets to have better visibility into the locations of their vehicles or the status of deliveries, improving the overall management of fleet operations. -- AT and T Mobile Extension Service: ABS also announced the availability of AT and T Mobile Extension -- a premises-based solution that extends Internet Protocol (IP) private branch exchange (PBX) features to wireless devices. Customers using an IP-PBX from Cisco Systems, Inc. can add software that will enable this capability in compatible wireless devices. ABS will then contract for wireless minutes to be used for fixed mobile convergence calling between the PBX and the enabled wireless device.
It is a demonstration of adding wireless access to core business solutions that will enable future unified communications initiatives. -- AT and T Global Network Client for Remote Access Service: Enhancements to the latest version of the AT and T Global Network Client version 7.6 include: -- The ability to prevent multi-homing (e.g., concurrent fixed wireline and mobile broadband access). This feature makes it impossible for a user to have IP access through more than one physical interface if the connection was established with the AT and T Global Network Client. -- Support for monitoring the NetMotion virtual private network (VPN) client, a third-party VPN client software. -- The ability to select preferred cellular service type (3G or 2G) and configure access warnings for cellular roaming connections. -- The ability to centrally manage and dynamically update global network client customizations. -- The ability to download software and access point updates in the background. -- Plug-and-play support for AT and T LaptopConnect devices now available from AT and T Mobility's AT and T Communications Manager 6.9 desktop client software. -- Tethering support for the BlackBerry Bold. Hosting and Applications Services: -- PCI Certification Audit: AT and T Hosting and Application Services successfully completed a third-party audit and were found compliant with payment card industry (PCI) data security standards. Being compliant saves customers time and money because they can leverage ABS's certified audit materials in their own PCI audits. -- Hosting and Application Management Services: Enhancements made during the fourth quarter include: -- Supplementing the hosting and application management capabilities by adding new products that include Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and IBM Websphere Application Server. -- New capabilities for the AT and T BusinessDirect customer portal that streamline change management processes and improve customer cycle time. -- The addition of service level agreements for the AT and T Virtual Dedicated and Managed Dedicated Server Offerings supporting 99.9 percent uptime. Data Services: -- New Ultravailable (UV) Network Service Options: ABS expanded the reach of its Ultravailable Network Service with two new options.
Both offer the full complement of the UV network's monitoring and management tool sets, expert support and visibility through BusinessDirect. The options are: -- Service Option 2 (UV2) -- Allows customers to build a SONET ring, managed by ABS, with room to grow to a second wavelength without additional upfront cost. Includes support for non-SONET protocols such as Storage and native Ethernet. -- Service Option 3 (UV3) -- Allows ABS to design, build, monitor and manage an Ultravailable Ring using customer-provided fiber and fiber maintenance. Also, monitoring and management of customers' existing network can be provided. -- AT and T Wavelength Private Line: AT and T Wavelength Private Line, a point-to-point wavelength service available nationwide, was also added.
AT and T Wavelength Private Line is a versatile, long-haul, monitored and managed service that can support multiple protocols that include gigabit Ethernet, 10 gigabit Ethernet LAN (local area network) and WAN (wide area network) PHY and configurations. Security Services: -- Web Security Services Enhancements: ABS enhanced the AT and T Web Security services to include features for email protection services that were previously available only in the AT and T Secure E-Mail Gateway Services offering. The new features include message security to provide spam and malware protection, message discovery for archiving, and message encryption for policy-based encryption. Other enhancements include the addition of Anywhere+, a Web malware scanning and Web filtering services feature for remote users.
AT and T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT and T brand, AT and T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high speed Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services.
For more information on AT and T hosting services, please visit: www.business.att.com/hosting.
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