LAS VEGAS, June 18 /PRNewswire/ --

- Company Expands and Strengthens Key Components, Including VoIP and
Conferencing, to Enable Unified Communications

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 (UC) 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 today, 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 voice-over-IP (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 (ICP), 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.

"We're helping our customers make the most of their IP networks and
IP-based services by tying these components together to transform the way
companies communicate and collaborate," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice
president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Business. "Whether
companies are managing a mobile workforce or looking to do their part to keep
the environment green by minimizing travel, Verizon Business continues to
develop and implement powerful new collaboration solutions for our business
customers around the world."

[To listen to a podcast about how Verizon Business is advancing global
collaboration, visit http://tinyurl.com/3mzpzm.]

With the expansion of its VoIP portfolio in Europe rolling out over the
next two months, Verizon Business will make its enhanced ICP offering
available to hosted-VoIP customers in the United Kingdom, France, Germany,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Sweden. The
enhancements will allow corporate employees to more efficiently manage their
voice and data communications. From a single user interface, workers can
control incoming and outgoing calls, access a single unified voice mail,
manage their online presence, send instant messages, synchronize their
contacts and calendars, and expand their mobility and teleworking
capabilities, including softphone functionality.

ICP users will also be able to manage conference-call scheduling and
manage presence to initiate Instant Meeting and Net Conference calls by
seeing who is available to invite and participate. They will also be able to
import conferencing meeting subscriptions, "drag and drop" conference
participants into a meeting scheduler, and schedule single or recurring audio
and Net conferences.

Net Conferencing powered by Office Live Meeting makes it easier for large
businesses and government organizations to experience the benefits of Web
conferencing, whether users are conducting simple impromptu collaboration
sessions, formal Web-based meetings, advanced online training or large
communication events. Verizon Business is rolling out the new version in
phases, and it should be available to all Net Conferencing customers by the
end of the summer.

To make conferencing even easier, new Web-based audio conferencing tools
will replace the need to download software or plug-ins. Web Moderator for
Instant Meeting and Meeting View for moderated conference calls are now
available in HTML format. These enhancements are available to customers
around the world, with versions in French, German and Japanese becoming
available later this summer.

"Verizon Business' newest collaboration offerings are leveraging IP
communications to help workers more quickly and efficiently meet with
colleagues, customers and business associates," said Dustin Kehoe, principal
analyst at Current Analysis. "This advanced collaboration capability is
becoming widely recognized as a critical competitive advantage, especially
for companies with global reach. The fact that Verizon Business is one of the
first in Europe to offer UC products on an international level speaks for
itself."

Verizon Business this year will continue to build upon its portfolio of
solutions to bring together industry-leading customer premises equipment,
software and network-based components to enable enterprises to take full
advantage of unified communications and collaboration services.

About Verizon Business

Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), operates
the world's most connected public IP network and uses its industry-leading
global-network capabilities to offer large-business and government customers
an unmatched combination of security, reliability and speed. The company
integrates advanced IP communications and information technology (IT)
products and services to deliver leading enterprise solutions including
managed services, security, mobility, collaboration and professional
services. These solutions power innovation and enable the company's customers
to do business better. For more information, visit www.verizonbusiness.com.

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(The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the
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Web site: http://www.verizon.com
              http://www.verizonbusiness.com
              http://tinyurl.com/3mzpzm