Access One Communications and BellSouth Team To Offer DSL In Eight Southeastern States.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. and ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 1999--

Access One Communications, an affiliate of Sirco International Corp. (NASDAQ:SIRC), and BellSouth (NYSE:BLS) today announced an agreement that will enable Access One to rapidly deploy Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services across BellSouth's service territory.

Under the agreement, by the end of 1999, BellSouth will provide access to all DSL-qualified loops through a single asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) port in each of 13 LATAs in eight Southeastern states. Access One has committed to deploy a minimum of 10,000 DSL lines to its customers over the next two years.

"This agreement is a key ingredient in our network deployment strategy," said Ken Baritz, Access One's Chairman and CEO. "By hubbing all of the DSL loops in each LATA to one access point, we will avoid the need to collocate in each central office. We can avoid the long delays and enormous expenditure of resources necessary in a central office-based network deployment plan and instead build only one network node per LATA. This will facilitate Access One's delivery of high-speed data services to our customers as rapidly and as cost effectively as possible."

According to Scott Schaefer, President - BellSouth Interconnection Services, "BellSouth is committed to working with CLECs such as Access One to deliver DSL and other high-speed data services over the BellSouth network. We're taking an aggressive approach to meeting our wholesale customers' needs with flexible and customized solutions. Our BellSouth ADSL Service offers Access One an immediate footprint in 30 major metros in the Southeast region."

Access One Communications is a Florida-based competitive local exchange carrier, which provides an integrated suite of telecommunications and Internet services to small and medium sized business in the Southeastern United States. Access One is currently converting its existing customer base from resale to a virtual local services network through the only region-wide UNE-P agreement with a Regional Bell Operating Company.

Sirco International Corp. is a diversified publicly traded company that invests in, develops and incubates Internet and telecommunications-related businesses. Sirco's portfolio of businesses include its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Essex Communications, a New York-based CLEC, WebQuill Internet Services, a Connecticut-based Internet Service Provider and Airline Ventures, Inc., a Texas-based E-Commerce retailer; and its affiliates, Access One Communications, a Florida-based CLEC, RiderPoint, Inc., an online marketer of insurance and financial products and SkyClub Communications Holding Corp., an internet marketer of satellite-based high speed Internet and digital television systems and services.

Atlanta-based BellSouth is a $23 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, video, Internet and information services to nearly 34 million customers in 19 countries worldwide. BellSouth Interconnection Services (www.interconnection.bellsouth.com) is the wholesale business unit of BellSouth, serving non-affiliated retail providers of local, long distance, payphone and wireless services.

This release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The Company's actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a difference include, among others, availability of management; availability, terms, and deployment of capital; the Company's ability to successfully market its services to current and new customers, generate customer demand for its product and services in the geographical areas in which the Company can operate, access new markets, negotiate and maintain suitable reseller and interconnection agreements with the incumbent local exchange carriers, and negotiate and maintain suitable vendor relationships, all in a timely manner, at reasonable cost and on satisfactory terms and conditions, as well as regulatory, legislative and judicial developments that could cause actual results to vary in such forward-looking statements.