America Online and Pantech Sign Global Licensing Agreement for T9 Text Input; Pantech Enables Easy Text Entry on Mobile Phones with T9 Text Input.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

DULLES, Va. & SEOUL, Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2001

America Online, Inc., the world's leader in interactive services, announced today it has licensed its T9(R) Text Input software to Pantech, a GSM mobile phone manufacturer based in Seoul, Korea. Under the agreement, Pantech will incorporate T9 Text Input software for English, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Spanish into its mobile handsets to enable the easy use of text-based mobile services such as SMS (short message service), mobile instant messaging and email. Pantech plans to distribute its mobile handsets throughout China and other countries worldwide.

"T9 Text Input is the leading solution for easy text input on wireless phones. We look forward to incorporating T9 Text Input into our next generation mobile phones," said Mr. Seo Gil-Ju, Software Team Manager of Pantech. "By making text entry quick and easy, we believe our customers can more fully utilize text-based wireless services."

"We are excited to work with Pantech to integrate T9 Text Input into their upcoming handsets," said Don Davidge, Vice President of AOL Mobile. "The use of text-based wireless services is growing tremendously and we believe T9 Text Input will make it quicker and easier for users of Pantech mobile phones to use these applications." About AOL Mobile's T9 Text Input

By incorporating T9 Text Input into mobile communications products, companies are solving the fundamental problem of how to quickly and easily type and send messages. Although each key on a telephone keypad can be interpreted in multiple ways - a single press on the "5" key could be "J," "K," or "L" - T9 Text Input uses an internal database to automatically scan possible variations to determine the correct word. For example, entering the word "call" into a mobile phone will take just four key presses with T9 Text Input rather than 10 key presses required by conventional "multi-tap" text entry.

In addition to Pantech, current licensees of T9 Text Input include Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens, Acer, Amstrad, Arima, Benefon, Bosch, Denso Wireless Systems America, Fujitsu, Hyundai Electronics, LG Electronics, Maxon Telecom, Memory Corporation, Mitsubishi, NEC, NeoPoint, Optimay, Panasonic, Philips, Qualcomm, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Sendo, Sewon, Shintom, Sony, Telit, Toshiba and Voxson.

Language Availability

T9 Text Input is available in 21 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. T9 Text Input supports Simplified and Traditional stroke-based Chinese, as well as phonetic Pinyin and BoPoMoFo text input. Language support is continually expanding.

About Pantech Corporation

Founded in 1991, Pantech began as one of the leading manufacturers of mobile pagers. With this one product, Pantech became the market-leader in the domestic pager markets in Korea and Southeast Asia. Since then, the company has succeeded in entering the CDMA mobile phone field in a relatively short time. Furthermore, it will start the mass-production of GSM phones within this year. Pantech has come to the forefront as a leading comprehensive mobile information and telecommunications company with the most prevailing R&D center in Korea, which has a manufacturing capability of 500,000 units per month.

About America Online, Inc.

America Online, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: AOL). Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.