Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) has recognized Verizon with the 2011 North American Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award.

Frost & Sullivan's 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.

"Significant experience in delivering next-generation services and solutions, an expansive global network footprint and breadth of partnerships, a broad voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)/ Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) access services portfolio and unique capabilities such as Burstable Enterprise Shared Trunking (BEST) and VoIP IP Enterprise Routing (VIPER), have helped Verizon (News - Alert) deliver superior value to its business customers," said Elka Popova, program director of Frost & Sullivan, in a statement.

Popova said that while its services provide considerable benefits to businesses of all sizes, Verizon is particularly well positioned to enable large, multi-site businesses to gain greater value from deploying IP communications services and solutions.

"Verizon continues to blaze an innovative trail for our voice-over-IP customers which this industry recognition reinforces," said Mike Palmer, vice president of enterprise strategy and chief marketing officer with Verizon.

Palmer said that SIP communications is surging in popularity not only for the network and operational efficiencies it delivers, but also for its inherent unified communications platform for hot applications such as video chat, social networking, presence and mobile device support.

Popova said that Frost & Sullivan recognizes that by offering multiple options to its customers, Verizon is not only expanding its own market reach, but is also enabling organizations with diverse communications environments (including hybrid TDM and IP networks) to deploy VoIP at their own pace, using the access-network solution that best fits their needs and existing infrastructure.

"Businesses can migrate to next-generation platforms and services gradually, without having to switch providers," said Popova.

Verizon's IP Integrated Access (IPIA) service is targeted at the majority of businesses that have and want to keep their analog key systems or TDM PBXs. Verizon also offers its high-growth IP Trunking service that is specifically targeted at businesses deploying IP PBX (News - Alert) equipment with next-generation solutions.

"An extensive geographic footprint and agreements with other providers have enhanced the value of Verizon's VoIP access and SIP trunking services to multi-national businesses," concludes Popova.

Popova said that Verizon helps such businesses consolidate their infrastructure and services, vendor relationships, and management and billing processes.