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2006-10-05
AT&T Debuts Automated PC Backup Services for Small Businesses, Online
Redmond, Washington - October 5, 2006 - AT and T Inc., has unveiled its online PC, laptop and server backup solutions to consumers and small and medium-sized businesses. The solutions are designed to enable customers to take advantage of simple and affordable protection of critical files.
The extension of AT and T's enterprise portfolio of backup solutions for consumers and home offices, includes the AT and T Online Vault, providing an online PC backup service that stores user data at a remote location to heighten the protection of important and sometimes irreplaceable files, such as financial records, digital photos, music and other important documents. The service is fully automated and secure, removing the guesswork and time commitment often associated with manual PC backups.
For business customers, the AT and T Remote Vault offering is an online service that allows small and medium-sized organizations to easily implement an enterprise-quality offsite data protection and restore program using a simple broadband Internet connection. Data from customer servers, PCs or laptops is remotely accessed, copied and stored at an AT and T Internet Data Center, where it is centrally managed and securely protected.
David Krantz, Vice President-AT and T Business Development remarked, ''Today's announcement is yet another example of the many ways in which AT and T is using its assets and capabilities to benefit all of its customers, from the most sophisticated multinational firm to consumers uploading prized family photos into their PCs. Many customers understand the importance of backing up files and data, yet, with the hassle and time involved in manual backup methods, data is not backed up as often as it should be. Our online backup services make this process easy and automatic, so users will never have to worry about the loss of an important document or file.''
The AT and T Online Vault service is designed to eliminate the need for external storage devices and the inconvenience of burning CDs, moving files into flash drives or remembering to back up to external hard drives. By storing the files off- site and online in a secure AT and T Internet Data Center, files are also protected from subsequently contracted computer viruses, accidental file deletions, hard drive crashes and natural disasters such as fire, floods or hurricanes.
The solution is designed to remove the burden of constantly backing up PC files every time something is added or modified. Working behind the scenes, and with little technical knowledge required, the AT and T Online Vault service automatically detects new files and changes to existing files and stores users' PC data online at a remote AT and T Internet Data Center. The AT and T Online Vault service compresses and encrypts all files in a customer's Documents and Settings folders and safely stores them at an AT and T Internet Data Center. Consumers have the option to exclude certain file types from their backup, such as e-mail or videos. Consumer data is available for recovery at any time -- only by the user -- for as long as the consumer subscribes to the service. Once the initial backup has occurred, the service will perform automatic, daily searches for updated files every time the user logs on to the Internet. The service also retains any individual updates as far back as 30 days, so consumers can recover files that may have been deleted from their hard drive or choose an earlier version of the file to recover.
The AT and T Online Vault service is available for a standard monthly fee of $5.95 for the first two gigabytes of storage space. For each additional gigabyte used, the cost is an additional $2 a month, not to exceed $17.95 a month. Customers are offered the opportunity to try the AT and T Online Vault service risk-free for 30 days with a money-back guarantee. The AT and T Remote Vault service is geared to the data protection needs of small to midsize businesses, as well state and local governments and education and healthcare organizations. Using the service, data from customer servers, PCs or laptops is remotely accessed, copied and stored at an AT and T Internet Data Center, where it is centrally managed and securely protected. AT and T Internet Data Centers feature redundant, uninterruptible power sources, state-of-the-art fire suppression and air-conditioning systems, and 24/7 network management and monitoring. Government-standard 128-bit advanced encryption standard (AES) is used to safely transmit all data.
The AT and T Remote Vault service requires no capital investment and allows small and medium-sized businesses to add PCs and servers as their business grows. The service is designed to be easy to install and use, requiring no training or technical expertise. Backups can be scheduled to automatically occur hourly, daily, weekly or as needed. Backup data is easily restorable to customer PCs, laptops or servers through the Web-based Remote Vault application. According to a recent report from technology consulting firm Yankee Group, U.S. small and medium-sized businesses spent $13.5 billion on storage-related initiatives in 2005, including investments in hardware, software and services. In addition, the firm projects 14 percent growth this year in storage spending by small and medium-sized businesses.
According to Yankee Group's Gary Chen, analyst, small and medium-sized business strategies: ''As small and medium-sized businesses realize the significant impact that power outages and natural or manmade disasters can have on their operations, more and more are investing in remote data storage and backup services. It's a market that Yankee Group expects will grow for the foreseeable future.''
With the AT and T Remote Vault service, a business customer's data is stored off-site for a standard period of up to four months -- longer, if needed. For PCs and laptops, the service is available for a standard monthly fee of $6.95 for the first gigabyte of storage space and $2 per gigabyte thereafter. Pricing for servers is between $6 and $12 per gigabyte, depending on the retention schedule selected and amount of data protected. Businesses can contact their AT and T representative for more information or to order the AT and T Remote Vault service.
Mr. Krantz added, ''AT and T Online Vault and AT and T Remote Vault services enable consumers and smaller businesses alike to take advantage of data backup and recovery offerings that are already proved in the marketplace. These solutions represent the latest example of how AT and T is bringing down-market the communications products, services and tools that large, global enterprises have found invaluable.''
AT and T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT and T brand, AT and T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high speed Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT and T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with 55.8 million wireless customers.
To learn more about the AT and T Remote Vault service, please visit: www.attonlinevault.com.
For more information about AT and T, please visit: www.att.com.
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