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Verizon Business Powers Immersive Video Communications for the First American Corporation

2009 OCT 26 - (VerticalNews.com) -- The First American Corporation's employees will be able to more effectively collaborate while reducing travel costs and helping to meet environmental goals -- all by using a lifelike, immersive video collaboration technology, known as Cisco TelePresence™, provided by Verizon Business.

Under a new agreement that expands and deepens its long-standing relationship with The First American Corporation, the largest U.S. provider of business information, Verizon Business has deployed Cisco TelePresence rooms at First American's Santa Ana, Calif., corporate headquarters, as well as locations in Westlake, Texas, and Bangalore, India. Immersive video goes far beyond traditional video conferencing by replicating face-to-face interaction so realistically that it feels as though everyone is in the same room, even though they may be thousands of miles apart. The Cisco TelePresence solution will run over a modern Verizon Private IP network based on multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) previously deployed by Verizon Business, providing First American with yet another way to leverage the power of IP.

(To listen to an audio podcast on The First American Corporation's use of advanced collaboration technology, go to: http://www.verizonbusiness.com/resources/media/index.xml?urlid=130351.)

"With employees spanning the world, technology plays a key role in driving our productivity and facilitating high-impact interactions while taking advantage of the global clock," said Evan Jafa, chief technology officer, The First American Corporation "We worked closely with Verizon Business to put together an effective immersive video solution that addresses our specific needs and is helping to transform the way we do business. Going forward, First American plans to incorporate an additional component to its program that would offer employees on extended projects the opportunity to keep in touch with family members overseas through telepresence."

Under various agreements, Verizon Business provides a variety of voice and data services to First American including Private IP, audio and net conferencing, voice over IP and IP trunking, as well as managed security services, a variety of professional consulting services, and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) contact center services for customer care.

Verizon, in a separate announcement Wednesday (Oct. 14), released the results of a groundbreaking study -- "Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration." The study, conducted by Frost & Sullivan and sponsored by Verizon and Cisco, explored how businesses and governments use technology to collaborate and found organizations deploying more advanced Internet protocol (IP) collaboration tools also have a higher return on their collaboration investment than their less collaborative peers. For more information on the study, visit: http://www.verizonbusiness.com/go/meetingsaroundtheworld.

"It's very powerful to see just how much collaboration can impact a company's performance," said Blair Crump, Verizon Business group president of worldwide sales. "In Meetings Around the World II, we found that by deploying advanced IP tools like telepresence, organizations can increase the overall value of their collaboration initiatives. First American is a great example of a company that is making the most of its IP networks and visual assets to help employees around the world collaborate without the time and expense of travel."

Mark Weidick, vice president and general manager for the TelePresence business unit for Cisco, said: "There are significant productivity, cost saving and, indeed, environmental benefits available to companies which choose to deploy sophisticated, Internet-protocol-based communications solutions such as Cisco TelePresence. Verizon Business is an innovative service provider in this area, and we are confident that First American will benefit from being able to use a Cisco TelePresence solution and take its internal communications to higher level."

With more than 30 years of experience delivering conferencing services, Verizon Business is a leading provider of collaboration and unified communications services, enabling organizations to conveniently and effectively collaborate, virtually anytime, anywhere, and helping them improve response time and productivity without the costs and carbon emissions associated with business travel. Verizon Business handles millions of virtual meetings each month through a wide range of audio, video and Web-conferencing offerings and some of the most advanced meeting tools available today, such as telepresence, in conjunction with IP-based services including hosted and managed services support with application management and performance capabilities.

Keywords: Verizon Business, Climate Change, Conservation, Ecology, Environment, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases, India, Internet, Internet Protocols, Technology, World Wide Web.