First Virtual Communications Announces Click to Meet Deployment Planned for All London Region's 2,600 Schools.Business Editors/Education Writers/High-Tech Writers LONDON & REDWOOD CITY Redwood City, city (1990 pop. 66,072), seat of San Mateo co., W Calif., on San Francisco Bay; inc. 1868. Manufactures include commmunications, electrical, electronic, and medical equipment. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 2004 The London Grid for Learning The London Grid for Learning provides a filtered broadband connection, network services, a common learning platform, online content and support communities for all schools across London. It operates as a consortium of 33 Local Education Authorities. is currently piloting Click to Meet(TM) with plans to deploy the solution to all 2,600 schools in the London region by 2006, covering 65,000 teachers and one million students First Virtual Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: FVCX), a premier provider of infrastructure and solutions for real time rich media communications, today announced that its Click to Meet(TM) solution is currently being piloted in select schools in the London area. Ten regional broadband consortia (RBCs) have been established to support the UK Government's ambitious plans to have broadband Internet access Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is high speed Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over modem. Dial-up modems are generally only capable of a maximum bitrate of 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a installed in every school in the UK within two years. Due to highly satisfying initial results, there are plans to deploy Click to Meet to all 2,600 London schools by 2006. The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) is a not-for-profit trust established across all 33 London Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to provide schools with broadband services See broadband and broadband service provider. . LGfL provides the broadband connectivity, managed services An umbrella term for third-party monitoring and maintaining of computers, networks and software. The actual equipment may be inhouse or at the third-party's facilities, but the "managed" implies an ongoing effort; for example, making sure the equipment is running at a certain quality and on-line content to serve the education community throughout the London region. "LGfL wanted to ensure that the new broadband resource is used as extensively as possible, and web based Coming from a Web server. See Web application. rich media conferencing was identified as the most valuable way of expanding on existing resources and creating new opportunities for learning," commented Ian Lehmann, operations manager See datacenter manager. at LGfL. "First Virtual's Click to Meet was chosen as its ease of use made it stand out. We want teachers and students to feel confident with the communications tool and to integrate it as a natural addition into their everyday routine, much like using a chalkboard or whiteboard The electronic equivalent of chalk and blackboard, but between remote users. Whiteboard systems allow network participants to simultaneously view one or more users drawing on an on-screen blackboard or running an application. . We also need an easy set-up without the need for a technician to be on-site whenever the conferencing tools are used. The ability to integrate the solution with any existing conferencing system as well as with our existing portal was another priority for us, and Click to Meet is more than able to provide us with everything we need." The pilot has been so successful that it has been extended, and Click to Meet has been approved for external calls. This means that any school using the solution is able to invite teachers, governors or pupils from any Internet-connected school or museum across the world to join them in a free conference. This innovation has opened up a vast array of educational opportunities including linking language classes directly to foreign schools, history classes to heritage museums, science classes to natural history museums and many other exciting partnership possibilities." Careful planning had to be put in place regarding the way that web and video conferencing See videoconferencing. (communications) video conferencing - A discussion between two or more groups of people who are in different places but can see and hear each other using electronic communications. are used in the education sector. Bruce Withington, sales manager sales manager n → gerente m/f de ventas sales manager n → directeur commercial sales manager sale n → for First Virtual's UK office explained, "Staff and students across the education sector will use Click to Meet in a very different way than the corporate sector currently uses it, as they are dealing with much larger numbers of users. For example, schools may often need to bring together between 80 and 100 people in four to five different locations, which is completely different than a 10-person, online corporate meeting. Our quality was also a critical factor as students and educators refuse to accept low-quality solutions." The Click to Meet communications solution provides a number of services, which are available for the schools in the LGfL region to trial. By using the installed-on-demand Conference Client, virtually any PC user with an IP connection is able to attend on-line web conferences through the LGfL. Online conferences provide users with the ability to make high quality and secure web conferencing A videoconferencing session via the Internet. In order to interact with other participants, attendees use either a Web application or an application downloaded into their client machines. calls free of charge across the LGfL network between any number of conferencing units. The solution allows better access and sharing of educational resources and offers realistic, cost-effective distance learning tools. Click to Meet is First Virtual's premier real time rich media communications solution enabling audio, video and data communications data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications make it possible for one computer to "talk" with another. within a single, browser-based user interface and provides affordable communication options for widespread deployment. As a software solution, Click to Meet offers more flexible deployment options, easier upgrades and lower cost processing power than hardware-based solutions. Combining high quality multipoint audio and video with web collaboration tools A collaboration tool is something that helps people collaborate. The term is often used to mean collaborative software, but collaboration tools were being used before computers existed, a piece of paper can for example can be used as collaboration tool. such as document sharing See data conferencing. , presentation, file transfer and whiteboard, Click to Meet provides the expressive and interactive communications that are critical in learning environments. About London Grid for Learning (LGfL) The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) is a collaborative initiative by the 33 London Local authorities, launched in June 2000, initially to provide broadband connectivity, managed services and on-line content, to serve the education community throughout the London Region. LGfL was established to meet the challenge to provide, by 2006, true broadband connectivity (minimum 2mbps, symmetrical) to London's 2600 maintained schools, populated pop·u·late tr.v. pop·u·lat·ed, pop·u·lat·ing, pop·u·lates 1. To supply with inhabitants, as by colonization; people. 2. with 65,000 teachers and one million pupils set in an area of 620 square miles. LGfL is on track to meet this challenge, on time and well within funding limits, with a year to spare. Currently over 72% of London's schools are connected to the LGfL network at bandwidths between 2Mbps and 100Mbps. Work started with the largest schools and hence an estimated three-quarters of London's one million pupils are already served by the LGfL. For more information about using video and web conferencing in schools, visit the LGfL web site at www.lgfl.net. About First Virtual Communications First Virtual Communications is a premier provider of infrastructure and solutions for real time rich media communications. The Company's award-winning Click to Meet(TM) product line is enterprise-class software that enables corporate, education, healthcare and government customers worldwide to present, share, sell, train and collaborate. Click to Meet integrates the user's choice of data, audio and multipoint interactive video into existing work environments and into everyday communication tools such as instant messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or , web browsing and e-mail. Click to Meet software solutions are widely deployed in over 1,500 customer locations and excel in challenging environments such as military intelligence, emergency response, disaster recovery, corporate training and geographically dispersed tele-working locations, among others. Headquartered in Redwood City, California Redwood City is a suburb located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Redwood City is the county seat of San Mateo County. As of the 2005 census, the city had a total population of 76,000. , First Virtual Communications has operations in France, United Kingdom, Japan and China. More information about First Virtual Communications can be found at www.fvc.com or by calling 1-800-728-6337 or +1-650-801-6500 outside North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. . Cautionary Statement Except for the historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements forward-looking statement A projected financial statement based on management expectations. A forward-looking statement involves risks with regard to the accuracy of assumptions underlying the projections. , including, without limitation, statements containing the words, "believes,'' "anticipates,'' "expects'' and words of similar import. Such forward-looking statements have known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of First Virtual Communications, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others: the success of and timely release of the Company's Click to Meet(TM) products, the increase in sales of the Company's Click to Meet(TM) and Conference Server products, the Company's variability of operating results, market acceptance of web conferencing technology, potential inability to maintain business relationships with integrators, distributors and suppliers, rapid technological changes, competition and consolidation in the web conferencing industry, the importance of attracting and retaining personnel, and other risk factors referenced in First Virtual Communications' public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's report on Form 10-Q Form 10-Q See 10-Q. for the three month period ended September 30, 2003. All trademarks are recognized. |
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