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AT&T Offers Industry-Leading Service Level Agreements for New Business Local High-Bandwidth Ethernet Service

Posted on: Monday, 29 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

BEDMINSTER, N.J., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&T today introduced a high-speed local service for businesses and government agencies that delivers high-bandwidth multimedia applications, such as streaming video and medical imaging, across multiple branch offices connected to a virtual private network within a metropolitan area. The service is backed with industry leading service level agreements for service installation, availability and restoration.

The new service, AT&T Ethernet Switched Service-Metropolitan Area Network, expands the company's wide-ranging portfolio of Ethernet and high-speed local access services designed to meet the growing bandwidth requirements of business customers, including those in the financial, government, education, health care, automotive and retail sectors. It is available in 67 metropolitan areas, 90 cities and more than 6,400 office buildings on-net nationwide and demonstrates AT&T's commitment to delivering network management and integration solutions to business customers.

The service supports the transport of data, voice and video at speeds of 50 Mbps to 1 gigabit per second and lets customers connect their local area networks, or LANs, using networking options that are competitively priced. It also offers a "self-healing" option that ensures businesses will have continuous access to critical servers, data and applications.

"AT&T is providing business customers with local access and connectivity solutions that help them optimize the way they use their networks," said Barbara Peda, head of Product Management and Product Marketing for AT&T Business. "Unlike other providers, AT&T offers 'dedicated, committed' bandwidth, which means customers get all the bandwidth they pay for. They don't have to compete for available bandwidth. As a result, our customers can grow and adapt their networks to support emerging applications, while managing existing network investments and costs."

AT&T also backs the service with industry leading service level agreements for service installation, availability and restoration, and proactively monitors the service around the clock. Businesses also can use the new service to access applications hosted in United States-based AT&T Internet Data Centers.

According to analyst firm RHK, AT&T is "the best positioned overall, thanks to its large network, efficient operations, and demonstrated commitment to continued investment" to serve the Internet/network needs of businesses.

"AT&T is building on the maturity and stability of Ethernet technology to make it an even more attractive data networking alternative for businesses," said Roz Roseboro, program director for switching and routing at consulting firm RHK. "By offering service level agreements, AT&T addresses a top concern of network managers, and positions Ethernet services as a robust enterprise-class solution. RHK believes this is an important step in maximizing the power that Ethernet technology offers enterprises, by providing faster connections at lower prices, with no tradeoff in service quality."

AT&T is already succeeding in its commitment to offer end-to-end network management and integration solutions to small and large business customers and government agencies.

The Securities Industry Automation Corp. (SIAC) is working with AT&T to use AT&T Ethernet services, including AT&T Ethernet Switched Service-Metropolitan, as options to connect its customers to the Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI)sm.

SIAC, the technology subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange and AMEX, built SFTIsm in response to the loss of connectivity that resulted from the attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City in 2001. The highly reliable infrastructure offers financial firms access to the trading, clearing and settlement, market data distribution and other services SIAC provides on behalf of the U.S. securities industry's exchanges and utilities.

AT&T offers the broadest portfolio of Ethernet services in the industry, including services in AT&T High Performance Access Service (HiPAS), AT&T's breakthrough business local access offer with AT&T Service Assurance Warranties and performance metrics of its backbone out to the "last mile."

In addition to AT&T Ethernet Switched Service-Metropolitan Area Network, AT&T offers:

* Ethernet Private Line Service -- Metropolitan Area Network/Wide Area

Network, which provides point-to-point Ethernet connectivity at speeds

of 50 Mbps up to 1000 Mbps for both Metropolitan Area Networks and Wide

Area Networks.

* Managed Internet Service -- Ethernet Access, which provides Ethernet

access to AT&T's dedicated Internet access service -- Managed Internet

Service -- at speeds of 2 Mbps to 100 Mbps and 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

* Ultravailable(R) Managed OptEring Service(SM), which provides optical

access at Ethernet transport speeds of 10 megabits per second (Mbps),

100 Mbps, and 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) over fiber rings in 1 Mbps

increments. This service leverages Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) and

Generic Frame Procedure (GFP) technology and provides a scaleable,

rapidly provisioned and highly reliable (up to 99.999%) means of

supporting a business's extension of Ethernet capabilities into

Metropolitan Area Networks and Wide Area Networks.

* ACCU-Ring Ethernet Service Channels, an access method for AT&T ACCU-Ring

Network Access Service, a private SONET ring that provides businesses

with dedicated high-speed access for consolidating traffic, including

private line, switched and enhanced services, and all distance carrier

traffic (voice, data and video). AT&T ACCU-Ring connects ring nodes at

speeds from 50 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

AT&T, the nation's largest competitive local exchange carrier, currently has more than 4.2 million business access lines in service. For more information about AT&T Business Services visit http://www.att.com/business.

About AT&T:

AT&T (http://www.att.com/) is among the premier voice and data communications companies in the world, serving businesses, consumers, and government. The company runs one of the most sophisticated communications networks in the United States, backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs. A leading supplier of data, Internet and managed services for the public and private sectors, AT&T offers outsourcing and consulting to large businesses and government. The company is a market leader in local, long distance and Internet services, as well as transaction-based services like prepaid cards, collect calling and directory assistance. With approximately $37 billion of revenue, AT&T has about 40 million residential customers and 4 million business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications. AT&T has garnered several awards for outstanding performance and customer service.

The foregoing contains "forward-looking statements" which are based on management's beliefs as well as on a number of assumptions concerning future events made by and information currently available to management. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside AT&T's control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. For a more detailed description of the factors that could cause such a difference, please see AT&T's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This information is presented solely to provide additional information to further understand the results of AT&T.