BASKING RIDGE, N.J., July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Business announced today that its IP Web Center service has received the 2006 INTERNET TELEPHONY TMC Labs Innovation Award, presented by Technology Marketing Corp.'s TMC Labs division. The award honors Internet protocol communication products that are truly innovative.

IP Web Center, a Web-based, complete hosted contact-center solution, allows companies to quickly start up or expand their customer communications operations in response to rapidly changing business plans or business continuity requirements. It is one of the industry's first end-to-end-IP, hosted contact-center services and enables Verizon Business customers to take advantage of a VoIP infrastructure to achieve new capabilities and cost savings afforded by IP telephony in a contact-center environment.

"Verizon Business is committed to helping our customers realize the promise of IP," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Business. "By combining the power of the Verizon Voice- over-IP suite with our contact center expertise, IP Web Center helps businesses get closer to their customers in a flexible and efficient communications environment."

Last year, Verizon Business, then known as MCI, was the recipient of a 2005 Product of the Year Award from INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine for its next- generation suite of VoIP services. Verizon Business' VoIP offerings include Hosted IP Centrex, IP Flexible T1, IP Integrated Access, Managed IP PBX and IP Trunking Services.

"Verizon Business has clearly demonstrated to the staff of TMC Labs that IP Web Center is truly innovative in the burgeoning VoIP/IP telephony industry," said Rich Tehrani, group publisher and editor-in-chief of INTERNET TELEPHONY. "Never in this industry has there been a greater need to highlight the most inventive VoIP products and services."

Regarding the award process, Tehrani elaborated that, "our awards are based solely upon the uniqueness of the company's offering or how pioneering the particular product or service is. It is not based on company revenue or number of products sold. Quite simply, Verizon Business' IP Web Center is innovative."

The TMC Labs 2006 Innovation Award highlights will be published in the July and August issues of INTERNET TELEPHONY.

About TMC(R)

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) publishes four print publications: Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, SIP Magazine and IMS Magazine. TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. Ranked in the top 1,400 sites in the world by alexa.com*, TMCnet serves more than one million unique visitors each month. TMC is also the first publisher to test new products in its own on-site laboratories, TMC Labs. In addition, TMC produces INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO, The VoIP Developer Conference, VoIP Demo, IMS Expo and Call Center 2.0 Conference. TMCnet.com publishes more than 15 topical online newsletters. For more information about TMC, visit http://www.tmcnet.com/. (*alexa.com is an amazon.com company that ranks Web sites by their traffic levels. Neither alexa.com nor amazon.com is affiliated with TMCnet.

About Verizon Business

Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications , is a leading provider of advanced communications and information technology (IT) solutions to large business and government customers worldwide. Combining unsurpassed global network reach with advanced technology and professional service capabilities, Verizon Business delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world. For more information, visit http://www.verizonbusiness.com/.

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CONTACT: Media Contact: Carolyn Tyler of Verizon, +1-303-390-6593, or
carolyn.tyler@verizon.com

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