PARIS, June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Invacare Corp., a leading global manufacturer of wheelchairs and home medical equipment, has chosen Verizon Business to deploy and manage its new European communications network. A fully managed Verizon Private IP solution effectively quadruples the bandwidth available to employees at the company's 20 sales and production locations in Europe. The company's business-critical applications will be co-located at Verizon Business' data center in France.

The complete solution offers a secure, cost-effective way for Invacare to provide its employees with immediate availability of applications. Verizon Private IP provides the flexibility to accommodate fluctuations in bandwidth demand and can easily be scaled to handle future growth. In addition, Invacare's data is securely hosted, and Verizon Business professionals monitor the network's security and performance 24 x 7.

Invacare designs, manufactures and distributes an extensive line of non-acute health care products for the home, retail and extended care markets. Invacare's business operations are centralized around its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, which enables the company's 1,200 European employees to easily coordinate resources and information. Because of the company's ongoing business growth, its underlying communications infrastructure has come under increasing pressure, affecting network availability -- and business productivity.

Invacare's key criteria for upgrading its network were capacity, flexibility, quality of service and security.

Invacare's European network migration is the first stage of a strategic communications reassessment program designed to enable the company to consolidate infrastructure, reduce costs and enhance capabilities to support its future growth. The company is now looking to roll out Verizon VoIP solutions across its 20 European sites in the near future, and also enhance its use of Verizon Audio Conferencing solutions, as an initial move toward a fully unified communications environment. Importantly, by entrusting its network management to Verizon Business, Invacare is able to focus on its future communications needs, rather than its current communications capabilities.

"The move toward a fully IP-based environment will bring tremendous benefits to our European business, such as increased flexibility and lower operational costs," said Christophe Masquet, IT group manager at Invacare EMEA.