The denim that sets the trend. By Inside Verizon

>> Hello, welcome to Up to Speed Live. Happy Friday. It's been a short work week but a packed workweek. I'm Diana Alvear. Thank you for joining me today and let's get right into our weekly highlights. On Tuesday, boy, what a story.

We introduced you to a mom who turned her painful loss into a way to support other grieving parents. It was so powerful. Our thanks to our V-teamer. So beautiful. Yesterday our friend George introduced us to the Motorola 5G UW ace with adaptive sound.

You want to check this out. We will talk more about it later on. Let's go ahead and get started on an update on the ongoing situation that is Tropical Storm Elsa. So of course our teams have been on the ground for days prepping for her landfall, when she hit. We have been monitoring our networks and so far so good.

It could have been worse than it's been. Our employees are safe and sound and that is what matters the most. Now Elsa is making her way up the Atlantic coast. We will keep monitoring all through the weekend and our thanks to our Verizon response team for their hard working commitment in every single crisis. It's also a really good time to remind everybody about our V-2 V-fund.

Let me explain. It's a program to donate hours to help your fellow V-teamers in need. Our Verizon charity funded by donations from V-teamers to help other employees in need and in critical weather situations like Tropical Storm Elsa, if an employee is unable to gain access to or live in their home due to a catastrophic event, VtoV provides assistance for things like food, shelter and clothing. Your doing ins are 100% tax deductible. Please consider giving to VtoV today.

It's a casual Friday. We are so excited to talk all things BlueJeans and we have a special guest today making his Up to Speed Live debut is our new leader Eric Spadafora. So Eric, welcome to the show and I just have to tell you BlueJeans joined the Verizon family at the most perfect time. This has been a heck of a last 14 to 15 months. Can you tell us about the BlueJeans journey so far? >> Yeah, Diana.

Thank you for having me on today. I am super excited to provide updates on BlueJeans. We came from over the last year where we are today and where we will take the platform for growth and innovation globally going forward. The last year has been crazy for all of us. It started off with getting acclimated to remote work and moving for an outside sales force that's globally distributed.

That wasn't easy. I give our leadership a tremendous amount of credit for prioritizing our safety. Then it opened up to virtual excellence and leveraging the toolset that BlueJeans provides for Verizon but extending that out to our customers so they can run their business in conjunction with the network services and voice services we provide. So video became an enabler to continue to drive the growth and momentum we see in our core product lines. Now today as we all return to office work forward, get your badges ready.

I know I have done my training and I hope you have done yours. We are looking to institutionalize video as part of the hybrid working methodology. Both internal to Verizon of which we are all participating but also externally with our customers. So taking equipment that perhaps hasn't been used in a year or more and making sure we integrate that into the new meetings and events platforms is really driving opportunity for growth within our business but it's a need our customers have and to do so under the banner of BlueJeans by Verizon they know it's going to be secure, scalable and high quality. So we are seeing tremendous momentum in our business.

As a matter of fact, last month was the biggest month we've ever had in terms of sales production in BlueJeans history. Super proud of the entire team. It was the largest quarter we ever had so the momentum is actually accelerating in the BlueJeans ecosystem and we are very excited about what the next phase looks like. >> Yeah, I have to tell you I feel that BlueJeans enabled me to work at Verizon. I started working during the pandemic.

There are teammates I have yet to meet in person. Yeah, I'm pretty grateful that BlueJeans for enabling us to continue and doing excellent work. Eric, what is your personal vision for BlueJeans moving forward? I know that you have been talking about really cool innovations to come. >> Yeah. So you aren't alone.

Nobody from BlueJeans has met with somebody from Verizon face to face. That changes next week. We have our first leadership meeting in the BlueJeans office in San Jose, California. I'm super excited to bring the team together. Even in that regard, not everybody is coming in.

We will have people who are remote and opt into that hybrid working modality. As it comes to the vision, it's pretty simple. We are going to continue to innovate and do that which we do best and provide an easy experience that is stay world class to our customers. So right now I think you saw the press release yesterday, we have a whole new user experience where iPads that allows for the functionality of the new 5G iPads on our network to have the device, network and now the BlueJeans new application creating an unbeatable experience in the industry. So this is something I'm super excited about as people return to travel and return to work in the office and having a new ecosystem that provides that simplicity super important.

The other piece is leveraging the network. We talked about 5G and MEC. Innovative use cases with glasses in the marketplace that's first of its kind of we showed them to industry analysts and they were blown away at the potential work and use cases to couple video with 5G with the MEC into purposedevices. Segmentation and fertilization. In the S and V and we will continue to go to market with tremendous bundles to add value to our customers attached to our core wireless and wire line offerings.

More of that to come but proven successful as we had our best quarter ever in the S and V space and the business market space in Q2 As we move up, verticallization and purpose built solutions such as our innovative telehealth platform. I think of it more as virtual patient care. Less about telehealth but more about institutionalizing video to have better patient outcomes and make sure we are focusing on all four of our stakeholders that we are servicing on behalf of Verizon. I could not have done that without the product and engineering team which is globally distributed and has obviously when you have a company this size and you are globally not all things are even as the pandemic has fluctuated back and forth but they have done a tremendous job of hitting the deliverables and continuing to invest time, effort, energy to improving the current product set and evolving with the marketplace but also innovating with purpose built solutions such as telehealth. >> Yeah, I know we take it for granted now that we just have great video calling and we are able to do our jobs remotely but rely on our incredible engineers and technology focused colleagues to make all of that possible.

Our thanks to them. Finally I want to take a short moment to say, you know, maybe new at BlueJeans but in the new to Verizon. Can you briefly tell us a little bit about your journey as a V-teamer here? >> Yeah, so I'm truly a V-teamer. Have done many things across the business over a host of years. Started as a sales rep like many of you either in the stores or out facing and serving customers.

And work my way through various iterations. I worked in small business, big business, global enterprise, wireless wireline, retail, VtoV. I am proud to have held different titles through the business and having done so in the confine of Verizon. That's a unique attribute that we as V-teamers really need to understand and take advantage of which is it just makes you a better executive as you continue to grow and advance your career when you understand how big our business is but how it all fits together in the commonality, Diana, that I see is we do what we say we will do. We deliver on our commitments and take care of our customers no matter which job I had we put the customer first and we will continue to do so as we use BlueJeans as an enabler to deliver great experiences throughout our product and customer based globally.

>> That's wonderful to hear and I would expect nothing less. A tradition of excellence. Last question is are you wearing blue jeans right now? >> I am. I will take advantage of that. I will take advantage of that going forward and I hope everybody else has got casual Friday going as well.

So, yeah. >> Awesome. I'm wearing my blue jeans, too. Thank you so much for a stellar Up to Speed Live debut. You are doing great things there at BlueJeans of our thanks to the team there.

And we wish you all the best. >> Thank you, Diana. >> All right, so let's talk a little bit about business, specifically business wins. We are always winning. Verizon recently been recognized.

PC magazine named FiOS one of the fastest ISPs for 2021. It feels good to keep winning. And "U. S. News and World Report" named FiOS one of the best internet service providers 2021 best fiber internet provider 2021 and our very own Ronan wanted to share his thanks to our hard working and talented FiOS team.

Take a listen. >> Hello, everyone. I wanted to just make a big shout out to the FiOS team for yet again winning PC magazine's fastest ISP. And just when you thought that was the achievement of the year, it followed up with fastest internet fiber provider. A double win for the FiOS team.

So to everyone in the FiOS organization from the network team right through, just my special thanks for delivering an incredible service and experience, never more important than it has been in the last year. You know you are winners and the fastest in the market. Congratulations. >> Thank you, Ronan and I can attest to the excellence of FiOS as I use it in every day life including right now. We are also celebrating for the 16th team Seramount.

Formerly Working Mother Media has ranked Verizon as a top ten best company for create agriculture that enables multi-cultural women like me to achieve their career goals. I especially appreciate this win. It's such a good feeling. So speaking of good feelings, did you catch the Stanley Cup championship Wednesday night? Congrats to the Tampa Bay Lightning on their second consecutive cup. How about that? I don't know what's in the water in Tampa Bay.

They are winning as well. We are so happy to be partners with the NHL. We continue to provide 5G connectivity in select arenas and giving those fans amazing immersive experiences and be sure to catch off the ice series on the Verizon YouTube channel. You will see how 5G is helping break down analytics of the entire game for players, for the coaches and the fans alike before the puck drops for the new season in October. Now reminder, yesterday we launched the most affordable Motorola 5G phone available on Verizon.

Motorola 1 5G UWA. Our friend helped us with that one and let me tell you about it. It gives you access to all of Verizon's 5G flavors including upcoming enhancements to 5G Ultra Wideband that will be leveraging C-band spectrum. That's super important. And our brand-new Verizon adaptive sound system.

What is this? It let's you experience movies, games and movies like never before. The best part it's available for only $299.99. Or you can even get it on us with a premium unlimited plan. So that's the news of the week. I just have to take a moment to shout out 14-year-old girl out of Louisiana.

She won the spelling bee. If you have not seen that on social media she is everywhere. She is amazing. She is a basketball prodigy and I have to shout her out because that moment when the confetti comes out and she does that little spin is just the best moment of your day. Congratulations.

You are amazing. S a a former spelling bee contender I still remember the word I misspelled. I'm Diana Alvear. Thank you for joining me today. Our thanks to Eric Spadafora the team at BlueJeans.

It's so cool to see what they are doing. I want to thank you for hanging out with me and I want you to have a safe weekend and if weather is an issue in your area try to hunker down and enjoy a nice chill Saturday and Sunday. Until next time, not going to screw that one up. You are Up to Speed.

Source : Inside Verizon