Florham Park, NJ -- October 11, 2004 -- Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBCE) today announced it has made significant investments in conferencing staffing, technology and enhanced services to support a surge in new business, expanding its leadership in IP Video, audio and Web collaboration.
As a result of rising demand for its conferencing services, the company has increased by 30 percent the number of customer care representatives in its call centers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom since the beginning of 2004. Global Crossing also invested more than $3 million in technology to meet anticipated growth in usage from existing and new customers.
"With our increased staff, new technology and unique MPLS network, we are able to deliver a seamless, global user experience and provide customers with superior quality of service," said Neil Barua, global vice president of collaboration services for Global Crossing. "By leveraging our IP platform, we are also able to introduce offers like iVideoconferencing, a converged IP service that interoperates between an ISDN and IP environment. Introduced at last year's PUG show, the award-winning iVideoconferencing continues to be in great demand as enterprises and carriers covet the performance benefits of IP."
Today, at the Polycom User Group (PUG) convention in Tampa, Global Crossing is also showcasing enhancements to its video and Web conferencing services. The company launched Ready-View Instant Meeting(SM), a new productivity tool for Global Crossing's IP videoconferencing and award-winning iVideoconferencing service. The new feature enables a chairperson to schedule and launch a videoconferencing call without a prior reservation, connecting up to five multi-point sites and two dial-out audio ports.
Global Crossing is also introducing its new iCalendar feature, which simplifies meeting management by sending notices to requested videoconferencing participants, populating their e-mail clients like Outlook® and Lotus Notes with the date, time and location of their call. The company also enhanced its reservationless audio and Web conferencing service, Ready-Access Web Meeting, by adding a cost-effective and private solution that allows users to record and store sessions on their desktops. In addition, the company offers customers a choice of Web conferencing tools including eMeeting, a high-end collaboration tool with advanced features such as white boarding, and it recently announced, it will add Microsoft® Office Live Meeting to its portfolio.
"The growing demand for integrated audio and Web collaboration tools like Ready-Access Web Meeting are fueling instantaneous global communications and improving productivity," said Barua.
Global Crossing also continues to deliver the benefits of IP today with converged IP services such as iVideoconferencing and IP video, which maximize a customer's investment in their existing and legacy systems. iVideoconferencing leverages Global Crossing's unique global IP network to dramatically improve the performance, reliability and quality of ISDN-originated videoconferences, while saving customers up to 70 percent on current ISDN rates on international routes.
IP Video employs Global Crossing's IP VPN service to link customer locations using managed gatekeepers to connect H.323 IP video endpoints. Ready-Access Global 800 reservationless service utilizes Global Crossing's VoIP network to backhaul audio traffic. Along with Global Crossing's Event Call for attended audioconferencing service and Ready-Access Web Meeting, these services have attracted new customers and increased business from existing enterprise and carrier customers.
By owning and operating its own network, Global Crossing enables customers to realize more value from their existing data network infrastructure by carrying voice and video traffic over the same multi-protocol label switch (MPLS) network, giving enterprises a competitive edge by pooling their resources.
About Global Crossing
Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBCE) provides telecommunications solutions over the world's first integrated global IP-based network. Its core network connects more than 300 cities and 30 countries worldwide, and delivers services to more than 500 major cities, 50 countries and 6 continents around the globe. The company's global sales and support model matches the network footprint and, like the network, delivers a consistent customer experience worldwide.
