Frost & Sullivan Gives Top Honors to AT&T for its Best Practices in the Video Communication Market

-- AT&T is well positioned for remarkable growth due to its financial strength, as well as its robust portfolio of video conferencing, UC and networking capabilities

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the video conferencing hosted and managed services market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes AT&T with the 2013 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Share Leadership. AT&T retained its top ranking in the enterprise video communication space by diversifying its portfolio, increasing inter-carrier arrangements, and achieving mindshare leadership.

"AT&T evolved from foundational to pervasive video, extending its telepresence offering beyond room-based immersive systems to encompass desktop, laptop, and mobile device endpoints," said Frost & Sullivan Director Ronald Gruia. "AT&T pioneered the offer of on-demand video conferencing services when the rest of the market offered only scheduled service."

AT&T delivers video using its own multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network, as well as the Internet, for both mobile and fixed access. Adapting to the recent bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, the company offered the availability of its video services not only to registered endpoints, but also to guests.

Anticipating that Unified Communications (UC) clients will play a key role in the uptake of enterprise desktop video, AT&T continued to improve its UC application portfolio. It enhanced video capabilities in applications such as AT&T Connect^® (Web conferencing platform) and AT&T UC Central^® (a client-based cloud app for UC and telephony services, including video conferencing via AT&T Connect). Importantly, AT&T supports the hybrid model with UC video functionality split between the cloud and an enterprise's premises.

Regardless of who owns the telepresence premises-based infrastructure, AT&T offers customers two management tiers: Managed Care (end-to-end service) and Essential Care (selective services). Customers may opt to manage their own customer premises equipment (CPE) and subscribe separately to the AT&T Business Exchange. "AT&T also offers customers two billing alternatives for intra or intercompany bridging and B2B direct dial: unlimited/flat-rate (with extra charges for inter-provider conferencing) and metered," noted Gruia. "Apart from all this, AT&T facilitates managed sessions, including a full concierge service."

In addition to its solid relationship with Cisco^®, AT&T has nurtured a strategic alignment with Polycom^® to diversify its portfolio. AT&T now supports a wide array of equipment, including Cisco TX, TPS, former Tandberg EX, MXP and C Series, Polycom's VSX, HDX, and OTX series, and LifeSize^® Conference and Team systems.

A standout feature of AT&T's video conferencing strategy is its focus on customer needs while working with the broader industry. It cooperates with various industry bodies such as the Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC), ATIS Cloud Services Forum, and the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium (IMTC) to establish its leading R&D mindshare and gain valuable insights from a wide gamut of customers.

In recognition of the exceptional execution, financial strength, and service delivery capabilities that have enabled AT&T to capture a significant part of the future growth in the managed and hosted video conferencing services market, Frost & Sullivan is pleased to present the company with the 2013 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Share Leadership. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in capturing the highest market share within its industry. The Award recognizes the company's leadership position within the industry in terms of revenues or units, as specified.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and internationally. With a powerful array of network resources, that includes the nation's largest 4G network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile Internet, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse^® and AT&T │ DIRECTV brands. The company's suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world.

Additional information about AT&T, Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

© 2013 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. Mobile broadband not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies.

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Aaron C. Virola
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E: av768w@att.com

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