Free Internet Speed Upgrades for SureWest Customers

Starting June 30, SureWest Fiber-to-the-Home Customers Receive More for their Money

ROSEVILLE, Calif., June 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — As Internet users continue to increase their need for speed, leading independent communications holding company SureWest Communications (Nasdaq: SURW) maintains its commitment to meeting that demand. Today, the nation’s first company to deliver a symmetrical two-way Internet speed at a blazing fast 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) announced it will boost connection speeds for fiber-to-the-home customers in its greater Sacramento market. This upgrade will happen automatically on June 30 with no extra cost or action required by the customer.

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These unique symmetrical speeds, meaning Internet speeds downstream are the same as those upstream, are only available on SureWest’s superior fiber-optic network and can reach up to 50 Mbps for both uploading and downloading. Customers can use these new super-fast speeds for enhanced online gaming and faster uploading and downloading of multimedia such as music, photos and videos.

For example, in SureWest’s serviceable footprint, the average Internet upload speed of other service providers is 2 Mbps. To upload an average 2-hour movie at a video file size of 500 MB, SureWest’s most popular Internet speed of 15 Mbps would take roughly 4.5 minutes compared to 33 minutes at 2 Mbps. SureWest’s 25 Mbps speed would take 2.7 minutes and its 50 Mbps would take 1.3 minutes.

Customers who currently subscribe to SureWest’s 3, 10 or 20 Mbps Internet packages will receive these free upgrades:

                    New Speed (Mbps)       Current Speed (Mbps)
                    upload / download       upload / download
                          3 / 3                   3 / 1
                         15 / 15                 10 / 10
                         25 / 25                 20 / 20

“In today’s environment, customers are understandably searching for ways to receive more value from their products and services,” said Pete Drozdoff, vice president of marketing for SureWest. “Our key to differentiating SureWest from the competition is our ability to deliver value and reliability to customers through cutting-edge products and features over our superior fiber-optic network. This free speed upgrade enhances the Internet experience for our customers and continues to allow us to outperform the competition with the fastest connection speeds wherever we serve.”

Internet speed upgrades in SureWest’s Kansas City market are planned for 2010.

About SureWest

SureWest Communications (www.surewest.com) is one of the nation’s leading integrated communications providers and is the bandwidth leader in the markets it serves. Headquartered in Northern California for 95 years, the company expanded into the Kansas City region in February 2008 with the acquisition of Everest Broadband, Inc. and offers bundled residential and commercial services that include IP-based digital and high-definition television, high-speed Internet, Voice over IP, and local and long distance telephone. SureWest was the nation’s first provider to launch residential HDTV over an IP network and offers one of the nation’s fastest symmetrical Internet services with speeds of up to 50 Mbps in each direction on its fiber-to-the-home network.

    Corporate Communications Contacts:
    Ron Rogers . 916-746-3123 . r.rogers@surewest.com
    Anne Chacon . 916-786-1235 . a.chacon@surewest.com

SOURCE SureWest Communications