Bell Atlantic Eyes Disaster Recovery Market

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Bell Atlantic Eyes Disaster Recovery Market

Shannon Henry

Staff Writer

Bell Atlantic Federal Systems is focusing a business group on the expanding market of disaster recovery.

"We see the area of contingency planning growing in importance to our government customers as networks and communications systems have gotten more complex, and the transfer of data as well as voice messages are so crucial and vital to operations," said Barbara Connor, president of Bell Atlantic Federal Systems.

Barbara Connor, president of Bell Atlantic Federal Systems

Government agencies are now patterning themselves more after commercial businesses, which have long been reliant on disaster recovery systems, according to Michael Braham, director of contingency planning for Bell Atlantic Network Services Inc., Washington. "The federal government is rapidly trying to redefine itself as corporations," he said.

Bell Atlantic's new push comes in part because of the current awareness of damages caused by natural disasters and terrorist attacks in the past few years.

In addition, communications - including voice mail, e-mail, data, video and fax - have become more vital parts of a company's day-to-day business.

"We see the future in the strength and reliability of the network," said Braham. "The telecom side has become much more crucial."

The telco will launch a World Wide Web site by the end of the second quarter that will allow potential customers to check out disaster recovery case studies, do risk analysis and find out how the technologies work.