GENUITY Announces High-Speed, High-Capacity Internet Products and Services for Business, Government and Education; Easy, integrated solutions make the Internet a strategic business tool

Business Wire, Dec 10, 1996

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 1996--GENUITY has announced a powerful line of integrated Internet solutions that make it easy for organizations to transform the Internet into a strategic, competitive business tool. As a Tier One Internet backbone provider, the company's offerings combine the high-speed, high-capacity connection required by medium-to-large-sized organizations with customization, consultation and support. The result is a complete, cost-effective Internet solution for business, government, and educational institutions that want to conduct business worldwide over the Internet.

"GENUITY is not a phone company, a hardware manufacturer or a software developer," said T. Geir Ramleth, president and CEO of GENUITY. "We are a dedicated Internet Service Provider committed to empowering enterprises through effective use of the Internet. GENUITY's unique solution is designed for businesses only. Many Internet providers supply only pieces of an Internet connection. GENUITY integrates all the pieces - which means our customers obtain their software, hardware, Internet connection, and consultation and support from one expert supplier."

GENUITY's charter is to help organizations new to the Internet - companies without an MIS staff or technical expertise - gain access to the technology and resources they need to integrate the Internet seamlessly into their operations. GENUITY's new product line makes the Internet a significant, strategic business advantage, useful both inside a company and with outside partners, customers, and resources.

"Internet frustration is high," said Rodney Joffe, GENUITY's chief technology officer. "Companies find few Internet providers that focus specifically on the needs of businesses. GENUITY's easy-to-use, innovative products and services makes using the Internet - a process that has often been overly time-consuming and burdened with unnecessary difficulty - effective and efficient."

Superior products that reduce costs and provide flexibility

GENUITY's integrated group of products and services are designed to offer cost-effectiveness and flexibility. Customers can pick and choose from the following service options, as fees are based on the size of the product/service package.

Connection services: GENUITY's national network GENUITY offers one of the fastest privately-owned Internet Protocol (IP) networks in the industry today, which means high Internet performance for customers. The national network is built on a fully-meshed, redundant Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) backbone. The ATM backbone offers service as fast as 90mbps with direct links to all six major Internet network access points (NAPs).

GENUITY connects directly to the major Internet exchange points via its network operations and data centers which are located in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, San Jose, Washington, D.C., and London. As a result, GENUITY customers also connect directly to the commercial backbone of the Internet, a benefit that most other Internet companies are unable to offer.

The high quality and multiple locations of the GENUITY network means the distance for information transfer is minimized between customers and the Internet and between customers and the organizations they communicate with, such as branch offices, vendors and suppliers and their own customers. GENUITY customers can choose several speed and capacity Internet connection options, including T1/T3, Ethernet (from 56 kbps to 10mbps), 100mbps dedicated FDDI, frame relay, and dial up.

Data center services: Network operations and data center links GENUITY data centers operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so customers don't have to hire staff to monitor and manage their Internet and Intranet operations. This offers customers more time to focus on running their own businesses.

GENUITY's network operations and data center engineers serve as the virtual MIS staff for remote configuration and remote monitoring of the customer's Internet network. With remote access, a customer's Internet services can be configured, changed, upgraded, and tailored from the center, eliminating the need for costly, time-consuming site visits. Customer data remains secure, usage tracking and reporting is centralized and standardized for accuracy and speed, and problems are detected and solved quickly, often within minutes and before customers even notice them. In addition, all data centers meet computing industry standards, complete with uninterrupted power supply, temperature control, raised floors and continuous monitoring.

Customers with heavy-usage sites or large sites with multimedia and interactive content can leverage GENUITY's co-location and web and server hosting. Co-location means that GENUITY co-locates a customer's dedicated server hardware at one of its data centers, or right at the Internet exchange points for maximum response. These are redundantly connected to GENUITY's DS3 backbone.

As most companies are dependent on their computers to stay in business, GENUITY also assists customers in creating a comprehensive disaster-contingency plan designed to keep the network up and running in the event of earthquake, flood, fire, computer viruses or hackers.