BASKING RIDGE, NJ – Verizon Business is helping the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in its efforts to find a cure for Type 1 diabetes.
The Basking Ridge, N.J.-based telecommunications company announced Tuesday that it would provide an Internet protocol (IP) foundation for voice-over-IP (VoIP) communications and Web-based video meetings for the JDRF, which is based in New York and operates hundreds of locations nationwide.
Founded in 1970, the JDRF focuses on worldwide research and advocacy for children with Type 1 diabetes and has awarded more than $1.3 billion for diabetes research worldwide, including $156 million in FY2008. An estimated 50,000 people under the age of 20 are diagnosed each year with Type 1 diabetes, adding to the 23.6 million Americans now living with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes.
According to James Szmak, the JDRF’s vice president and chief information officer, the new telecommunications setup will replace a decidedly out-of-date system used to connect the JDRF with thousands of chapters, volunteers, researchers and supporters around the world.
“We’re using traditional, old-fashioned, 1960s and ‘70s-type phone systems,” he said. “We literally have dial-tone and ring-tone as our technology.”
Patrick Sullivan, director of SMB product marketing for Verizon, said the three-year deal will leverage Verizon Business’ IP Trunking service with Burstable Enterprise Shared Trunks (BEST) over Verizon Private IP, allowing the JDRF to eliminate its hundreds of phone and Internet carriers across the country in favor of one centralized service and use idle trunk capacity at one location to accommodate an increase in traffic at another location.
Also, Verizon will deploy the Cisco WebEx solution for Web-based meetings and face-to-face video and the Verizon Secure Gateway service to enable secure Internet connectivity. At JDRF chapters with five employees or less, Verizon will deploy its DSL service for high-bandwidth communications.
Szmak said JDRF employees will now be able to communicate quickly and easily with chapters around the nation and video-conference with researchers around the globe. They’ll be able to have a chapter explain its successful fundraising efforts with other chapters and learn about the latest in diabetes research firsthand, he said, “rather than by reading a white paper.”
“The challenge we have always had is in communication,” he said. “This will tear down those barriers. What we’re doing here is probably going to become the foundation” for other charitable and research organizations.
Szmak said the telecommunications network will be rolled out gradually, beginning in October and extending through next February.
Sullivan said Verizon’s work with the JDRF is just one part of an active interest in the healthcare field. He noted the company’s FIOS product “is selling well with doctors’ offices” who want to their communications all on one platform – including the televisions in their waiting rooms.
“We’re providing JDRF with communications and collaboration tools that will help them combat this devastating disease,” said James Geary, vice president of SMB sales for Verizon Business. “Verizon Business is a pioneer developing and delivering advanced IP technology for businesses, and JDRF is a terrific example of how we are helping mid-sized organizations achieve big-business transformations enabled by IP and advanced collaboration tools.”
Added Sullivan: “We connect fire departments together. We’re connecting the JDRF. There’s a lot of good that they do, and we can help them do it better.”
