AT&T Extends Its Global VPN and VoIP Leadership with New Capabilities

AT&T Extends Its Global VPN and VoIP Leadership with New Capabilities

BEDMINSTER, N.J., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T today announced that it is strengthening its industry leadership in both Virtual Private Networking (VPN) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services through a series of new and improved features.

The company is introducing new capabilities including a real-time "hoot and holler" conference calling feature to create a conference bridge with IP multicasting technology to connect as many end points as needed, anywhere a customer wants, at any time, and an "automatic ring down" feature that enables two phones to be instantly connected just by lifting the handset. These applications have been particularly well-received by the financial services industry, where there is a high demand for instant connectivity among multiple users. AT&T is also providing new Voice over VPN customers with free off-net calling (those calls terminating outside a company's VPN) to all U.S. and non- U.S. locations for 60 days*.

Leveraging the company's industry leadership position, key features of this global VPN offer include:

-- support for a wide array of premises equipment including classic
digital and analog Public Branch Exchanges (PBXs), as well as next
generation IP PBXs;

-- the industry's first voice quality service level commitment that is
both VoIP-specific and International Telecommunication Union standards-
based;

-- a wide array of customer reports delivered via AT&T's BusinessDirect(R)
portal, including in-depth call detail and summary reports;

-- greater flexibility and effectiveness of call center employees through
advanced routing features;

-- dynamic real-time bandwidth allocation/prioritization, allowing
customers to optimize their converged voice and data traffic flows;

-- in-region, in-language, global customer support, and

-- unified billing for customers' voice and data services.



"AT&T's Voice over VPN offer is a great way for multi-national companies to maximize the value of their virtual private networks and their inherent security, by unlocking the productivity benefits of VoIP," said Cathy Martine, AT&T's senior vice president of Internet Telephony. "AT&T's goal is to provide businesses with 'customer-defined VPNs' built the way they want with the applications, such as voice, they need."

Over the past year, AT&T has been widely recognized for its industry leadership in IP VPNs by industry analyst firms such as Yankee Group, IDC, Forrester and In-Stat/MDR. AT&T has led the approximately $2.2 billion U.S. market with a number one position in the last two IDC annual rankings of IP VPN service providers.

"VoIP VPNs allow multi-national corporations to significantly reduce costs and improve remote communications," say Bryan Van Dussen, Director, U.S. Telecommunications Strategies at the Yankee Group. "As a Managed VoIP service provider, AT&T provides enterprises with globally consistent, secure, and cost effective VoIP solutions. AT&T's real time conferencing services also help financial businesses reduce conferencing fees and improve productivity by responding quickly to changing market conditions."

Recently, AT&T has provided Byram Healthcare with the Network infrastructure to support AT&T's Voice over VPN service. Byram Healthcare is a leading provider of disposable medical supplies and services to patients in the home. Byram has more than 450 employees, operates 14 offices throughout the United States which serve more than 250,000 customers.

"With our operations spread out across the country and growing rapidly, it is essential that we deploy a world-class communications system that is efficient and leverages our existing VPN investment," commented Richard Entrup, Chief Information Officer of Byram Healthcare. "VoIP will maximize the ability of our employees, customers and partners to interact with one another while enabling an approximately 80 percent reduction in our move/add/change expenses and a 15 percent reduction in our interoffice calling expenses.

"Our relationship with AT&T will clearly pay dividends," Entrup continued. "It enables us to create a distributed call center, lay the foundation for a proposed integrated voice response system, and of course cut costs, which will lead to a cumulative five-year net benefit of approximately $5 million and a return-on-investment of 282 percent."

Providing customers with significant savings on capital, personnel and administrative expenditures as well as significant productivity benefits, AT&T' s fully managed, highly secure, end-to-end solution provides flat-rate, unlimited on-net calling to more than 50 countries around the world and throughout the U.S. For off-net calling, AT&T provides highly competitive rates.

In 2003, CEMEX, a global leader in cement and ready mix products, selected AT&T for the global deployment of an MPLS-based network converging data, voice and video services.

"CEMEX stakeholders expect us to continuously deliver sustainable value, while maintaining the highest levels of quality and reducing the cost of operations," said Erwin von Dolling, the global leader appointed for the deployment of the next generation CEMEXNet. "We depend on superior global communications technologies to assure real-time information is in the hands of our business decision makers. AT&T's Enhanced VPN solution is improving the quality of the communications while simultaneously meeting our cost reduction objectives."

About AT&T

AT&T (http://www.att.com/) is among the world's premier voice, video and data communications companies, serving consumers, businesses and government. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company runs the largest, most sophisticated communications network and is the largest cable operator in the U.S. The company is a leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, and offers outsourcing, consulting and networking-integration to large businesses and government. Serving nearly 60 million consumers, AT&T is a market leader in consumer communications services and operates AT&T WorldNet(R) Service, a leading Internet access service that has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.

AT&T 'Safe Harbor'

The foregoing are "forward-looking statements" which are based on management's beliefs as well as on a number of assumptions concerning future events made by and information currently available to management. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside AT&T's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. For a more detailed description of the factors that could cause such a difference, please see AT&T's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This information is presented solely to provide additional information to further understand the results of AT&T.

* Call volumes subject to terms and conditions of signed contract and
limited to no more than the equivalent of $1,000

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991018/ATT )


Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991018/ATT
Source: AT&T

CONTACT: Gary Morgenstern, +1-908-234-6416, gmorgenstern@att.com, or
Joyce Van Duzer, +1-908-658-5227, jvanduzer@att.com, both of AT&T

Web site: http://www.att.com/


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