BBN Planet's New Network Operations Center Strengthens West Coast Internet Service Offerings.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 1995--BBN Planet Corporation, a subsidiary of Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (BBN), today officially unveiled its new Internet Network Operations Center (NOC) in Palo Alto. Designed to handle the burgeoning demand for Internet access services in the western region, the new NOC also provides BBN Planet with an unprecedented level of "fault-tolerant" network management support. In the unlikely event of a service outage elsewhere in the country, it is capable of managing BBN Planet's entire nationwide Internet network. One of BBN Planet's three Network Operations Centers (others are in Cambridge, MA, and College Park, MD), these Internet nerve centers provide 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week Internet network monitoring, security, and customer service and support for business customers.

BBN Planet demonstrated its value-added Internet services today at an open house at the Palo Alto NOC, located at 3801 East Bayshore Road. The opening of the facility and the addition of expanded service in southern California were announced recently as part of the company's rollout of nationwide value-added Internet services backed by strong regional support.

"We are fully commited to keeping pace with the sophisticated needs and rapid growth of California businesses and organizations taking advantage of the Internet," said Paul R. Gudonis, chief executive officer of BBN Planet Corporation. "The western region, and in particular California, is the nation's biggest hotbed for Internet commercial development activity. As the leading Internet services provider focused exclusively on the business and organizational market, we know that we must excel in the western region if we are to excel nationally and globally. That's why we're investing heavily in facilities, personnel and equipment to serve the region as no other Internet service provider can."

Said John Rugo, vice president and western regional general manager of BBN Planet, "To respond to our growing customer base, we continue to enhance and expand our service offerings throughout the region. Beginning next month, we will offer dedicated leased lines through local points-of-presence (POPs) in an expanded service area in Los Angeles and San Diego, where the demand for commercial quality Internet services is growing rapidly. And, we will continue to expand geographically throughout the next year, getting closer to customers by providing local services that are national in scope with regional support."

As the only Internet service provider currently offering worldwide end-to-end trouble-shooting and problem resolution, BBN Planet offers an unrivalled level of customer service for businesses and organizations. At the Palo Alto open house, the company demonstrated several of its value-added Internet service offerings, including:

o the InterNET Advantage [SM] managed Internet connection service;

o the Internet Site Patrol [SM] managed security service;

o the BBN Internet Server; and,

o the new Web Advantage [SM] service, which provides a wide range of World Wide Web electronic publishing services, including consulting, author training, custom World Wide Web site creation, and high- performance Internet server operations.

The company's recently introduced InterNET Advantage managed connection service offers customers a choice of uniformly priced and packaged Internet access and value-added services on a nationwide basis. The company is taking orders and provisioning Internet service through more than 500 local access points around the country. In Silicon Valley, BBN Planet also offers a new 10 Mbps Internet network service, nationwide availability of which is slated for later this year. The 10 Mbps high-bandwidth connectivity is available in shared and dedicated options and provides business customers with higher capacity and faster access to critical Internet resources.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, BBN Planet Corporation, a subsidiary of Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (BBN), is the nation's leading provider of managed Internet access and value-added services for businesses and organizations. Last Fall, BBN celebrated the 25th anniversary of its development of the ARPANET, which led to the development of the global Internet. Over 1,000 leading companies and educational, medical and research institutions nationwide connect to the Internet via BBN Planet's operations. BBN Planet's Internet services include managed security services, around-the-clock network operations, end-to-end problem resolution, comprehensive problem tracking, backbone management, training and consulting and ongoing configuration management services. For its fiscal year ended June 30, 1994, BBN had revenue of $196 million.

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InterNET Advantage, Web Advantage and Site Patrol are service marks of BBN Planet Corp.

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CONTACT: BBN Planet Corporation

Brenda Nichols, 508/369-2100

Fax: [phone]

Internet: [e-mail]

or

Jamie O'Donnell, 415/552-1515

URL:http://www.bbnplanet.com/