MCI WorldCom Introduces Advanced Communications Services for Businesses - ACS - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Sept 20, 1999

MCI WorldCom has introduced Advanced Communications Services (ACS) -- an innovative video-and-audio-streaming managed service that enables businesses to communicate important information or conduct valuable training via the Internet to a remote user's workstation or personal computer. ACS, which is immediately available, integrates video and audio streaming with text, slides, hypermedia and interactive chat/feedback -- all via a single dedicated line or dial-up connection to the Internet. ACS is ideally suited for distance learning, sales training, and broadcasting of corporate information such as new product announcements and other company news.

"ACS breaks down boundaries of time and space by bringing business audiences together over the Internet," said Jim DeMerlis, MCI WorldCom vice president of Data and Enterprise Product Marketing. "This fully managed web- based solution creates a cost-effective and flexible connection between an organization and its employees as well as external audiences."

Business Example

The Veteran's Administration Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, wanted to do some Continuing Medical Education training for physicians scattered across the United States but didn't want to require the doctors to travel. "Earlier this year we used ACS to present a one-and-a-half-hour training course to some 100 plus doctors via the Internet," explained Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak, Director of the Medical Care Clinical Center of the VA Maryland Health Care System. "Our instructors received excellent feedback from physicians scattered throughout the U.S. and five other countries. They received credit for attending the course and didn't have to waste time in travelling. It was a great first effort which we are looking forward to repeating with even better results."

Other examples of ACS applications include: a CEO communicates important company information to employees; a research analyst for a Wall Street brokerage holds a virtual meeting with the brokerage's institutional portfolio managers and money managers; human resources personnel utilize the service for ongoing certification training; sales executives provide sales teams with new product demonstrations. Regardless of the application, ACS provides a convenient, secure and cost-effective connection between an organization and its employees, customers, distributors, investors, etc.

ACS is a web-based service that utilizes MCI WorldCom's award-winning IP network (UUNET) and UUNET's hosting facilities. MCI WorldCom offers business, government and educational institutions the industry's most advanced and comprehensive data services portfolio for both domestic and international applications. Supported by one of the world's largest backbones, MCI WorldCom's comprehensive (and ever-growing) suite of data services provides a VPN continuum through: private lines and SONET private lines, packet services, circuit switched services, virtual data services -- frame relay and ATM, as well as vBNS, managed services, and Internet access. Additional information and a demo of the ACS service are available at www.wcom.com/acs.> MCI WorldCom is a global leader in communications services with 1998 revenue of more than $30 billion and established operations in over 65 countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet services. MCI WorldCom's global networks, including its state-of-the-art pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end high-capacity connectivity to more than 40,000 buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is traded on Nasdaq under WCOM. For more information on MCI WorldCom, visit the World Wide Web http://www.wcom.com.