BCE Emergis and Aliant Telecom Partner To Bring Advanced Electronic Business Services To Atlantic Canada.

Business Editors &High-Tech Writers

MONTREAL, Quebec, Canada and ST. JOHN, New Brunswick, Canada-- (BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 20, 2000

BCE Emergis and Aliant Telecom today announced an agreement whereby the two companies will partner to bring leading-edge business services to large corporate customers in Atlantic Canada.

Through this one-year renewable agreement, Aliant Telecom, owner of Canada's four major telecommunications firms, will offer its customers in New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island electronic document management services, through BCE Emergis' Business Document Exchange (BDX). The new business relationship will enhance Aliant Telecom's existing portfolio of e-business solutions and will enable both companies to maintain market leadership for their value-added products and services in Atlantic Canada.

&uot;Our large business customers are in need of leading-edge document exchange tools in order to conduct their business more effectively. BCE Emergis' BDX services have a proven track record and we're confident these services will suit their needs,&uot; said Jack Travis, Senior Vice President, Sales, Aliant Telecom. &uot;By partnering with BCE Emergis, we can quickly offer our customers a complete e-commerce solution for document exchange tools that complements our current range of network and communication services.&uot;

&uot;The Aliant Telecom companies -- NBTel, MTT, IslandTel and NewTel

-- are key partners for our growing suite of e-commerce solutions,&uot; said Christian Trudeau, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, BCE Emergis. &uot;Our intention is to replicate this kind of strategic alliance throughout North America, wherever marketing channels are seeking e-commerce applications to complement or augment their network-based services.&uot;

BCE Emergis will provide, host, and manage this network-centric solution from secure servers located at its Managed Service Centre in Toronto. Customers will access the BDX service from the Internet or from the Aliant Telecom companies' private IP-based networks.

An Internet-based business-to-business tool, Business Document Exchange (BDX) allows trading partners to seamlessly exchange all types of business documents, including traditional EDI, Web forms, even faxes. The service manages the exchange of documents, from submission to delivery receipt, transparently handling the translation from and to virtually all formats and network protocols. Using BDX, established organizations can improve the ROI on their EDI platforms and extend their reach to virtually all their trading partners with limited impact on their current business processes.

Aliant Telecom is part of the Aliant group of advanced technology companies. Aliant's staff of 9,000 professionals delivers full service, integrated solutions through its four core lines of business: wireline and wireless telecommunications, information technology, mobile satellite services, and emerging business solutions. From its base in Atlantic Canada, Aliant serves consumer and business customers worldwide. For more information visit Aliant at www.aliant.ca

BCE Emergis delivers network-centric e-commerce business solutions that improve customer processes through the exchange of secure transactions. Combining e-commerce services, network infrastructure, security services, and payment solutions through industry vertical applications, BCE Emergis offers a full suite of core technologies that are the essential building blocks for electronic commerce. BCE Emergis, is among the top electronic commerce providers in North America and is listed on the TSE 300 Composite Index. For more information, please refer to www.emergis.com.

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of BCE Emergis with respect to its performance, business and future events. Such statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results and events may vary significantly.