Verizon Marks Another Year of Expanded Network Reach, Increased Capacity and Enhanced Performance

NEW YORK, Dec. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The past year was one of continued expansion and growth for Verizon's global network – the company's essential and unrivaled platform for providing leading products and integrated solutions to customers of all types and sizes. Milestones in 2010 included several industry-leading accomplishments involving 100 gigabit-per-second (100G) technology; expanding and enhancing the company's network around the globe; driving toward greater speeds for FiOS and wireless customers; and breaking ground on a new technology center that will provide the testing of innovative services for years to come.

Technology Deployments Optimize Network for Growth

In March, Verizon successfully completed the first real traffic 100G optical fiber transmission field trial using standards-based optics end to end and the latest in 100G native router interfaces over a 1,520 kilometer section (944.5 miles) of the Verizon network in north Dallas.

Later in the year, Verizon completed an industry-leading 100G Ethernet trial over a metropolitan Ethernet infrastructure with 12.7 kilometers (7.9 miles) of field fiber in the Dallas area.

The company continued to break ground in October by installing the first standards-based, multivendor 100G Ethernet link on its IP backbone between Paris and Frankfurt. This 100G advancement was the first to enable 100G Ethernet connections between routers.

This year Verizon also increased traffic through its Partner Port Program, which draws content onto the Verizon network via direct connections with content owners' services at access points located around the country. These direct links allow content owners and aggregators to bypass the traditional "peering delivery system," to provide faster connections and faster content delivery.

In addition, Verizon was ranked No.1 as the world's most connected Internet backbone for the 11th time in the past 12 years. In its annual "Global Geography Report," TeleGeography found the Verizon global IP network has the greatest number of autonomous system network connections. The AS ranking demonstrates the closeness of a network to the rest of the Internet as defined by the number of segments on the network route that data must take to reach the Internet.

Global Expansion Meets Needs of Multinational Customers

Verizon is evolving to an "everything-as-a-service" model in which cloud-based, converged enterprise solutions are delivered with built in security via managed and professional services. The company's global IP network is the essential platform for this unique and powerful approach, which helps companies do business more effectively and efficiently, and Verizon made significant investments in 2010 in several key regions around the global to expand and enhance its capabilities.

Verizon's submarine cable presence expanded in 2010 with the sixth cable landing site -- in Shin Maruyama, Japan -- on the Trans-Pacific Express submarine cable. This site adds additional diversity and capacity to the company's extensive Asia-Pacific meshed network, which connects the U.S. to Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and India.

The company continued enhancing its presence in the Asia-Pacific region with the opening of a second data center in Hong Kong, bringing the total data centers in the region to nine. This data center also serves as a point of presence on Verizon's global mesh network, which provides additional paths for rerouting traffic in the event of a cable cut or other network disruption and improves resiliency and diversity. The new data center also enhances delivery, in Asia-Pacific, of the company's on-demand global computing solution, Computing-as-a-Service, as well as Internet Data Center Services.

Verizon's global network also saw strategic enhancements in the European region. Expansions in the company's ultra-long-haul network, an increased number of new and diverse MPLS nodes, additional converged packet architecture sites and new ROADM deployments help meet the data-growth demands of Verizon enterprise customers that do business in Europe. The company also continues to work toward activating the Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine cable, the next-generation undersea optical cable system connecting Europe, the Middle East and India. With a design capacity of up to 3.84 terabits per second, the EIG cable will provide Verizon a second diverse connection into the company's Marseille cable terminal.

This year Verizon also expanded its presence in Africa with a new network alliance with Gateway Business Africa that expands Verizon Business Private IP network capabilities into several African countries. They are: Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda, Lesotho, Angola and Zambia.

FiOS Provides Platform for Innovation, Essential to Meeting Consumer and Small-Business Demands

Demand for bandwidth-hungry applications including streaming video and video telephony is rising steadily as people and machines become increasingly connected. Verizon demonstrated in 2010 that its FiOS network is future-proof and can easily grow along with consumer and small-business demands.

Earlier this year, Verizon reached near gigabit-per-second throughput on its existing GPON platform. The company also successfully tested a 10 gigabits-per-second broadband connection using XG-PON2, capable of downloading or uploading a 2.3 gigabyte movie in about four seconds. And in the latter part of 2010, the company launched 150/35 megabits per second (Mbps) Internet service – the fastest mass-market broadband service in the nation – over the company's all-fiber-optic FiOS network to residential and small-business customers.  

Verizon also began testing Internet Protocol v6 (IPv6) on its FiOS services. This new protocol is designed to eventually replace the current Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), which over the next few years will be depleted due to the increased growth of the Web and IP-enabled devices.

Verizon Wireless Network Serves Up Speed and Reliability

In December, Verizon Wireless launched the world's first large-scale 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) network, the fastest and most advanced 4G network in America, in 38 major metropolitan areas and more than 60 commercial airports coast to coast.  The new network, which offers speeds up to 10 times faster than the company's 3G network, will be extended throughout the current 3G coverage area by 2013.  

Technology Innovation Center Builds on Leadership History

In April, Verizon broke ground on its Technology Innovation Center, which will be a catalyst for delivering new and innovative devices and services that connect people, places and things using next-generation wireline and wireless technology. The new facility will focus on 4G LTE wireless networks, building upon the history of the existing Verizon Technology Campus in Waltham, Mass., where research and testing has been taking place since the 1940s. The new center will continue to provide a central base for Verizon's advanced technology initiatives.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving more than 93 million customers nationwide.  Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers innovative, seamless business solutions to customers around the world.  A Dow 30 company, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of more than 195,000 and last year generated consolidated revenues of more than $107 billion.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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SOURCE Verizon