BellSouth Guarantees Businesses Unparalleled Dedicated Internet Service.

News/Assignment Editors

ComNet 2000

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2000

Proactive service level agreements provide Internet-savvy

businesses with greater confidence, guaranteed reliability

          Editors' note: The following BellSouth Corporation press
          release is one of three releases being issued today on
          Business Wire. Please be sure to review all three
          announcements to get the full story of BellSouth's new
          corporate emphasis on delivering a &uot;best-of-breed,&uot; turnkey
          e-business infrastructure to business customers. (Today's
          releases include: BellSouth Forms Network Consulting
          Alliance, Acquires Equity Stake in Predictive Systems, Inc.;
          BellSouth and Internet Security Systems Team Up to Offer
          Total Managed Security Solution; and BellSouth Guarantees
          Businesses Unparalleled Dedicated Internet Service.)

As predictions for online revenues continue to rise and businesses increasingly demand mission-critical reliability for Internet service, BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) today unveiled industry-leading Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for its dedicated Internet access service. The new SLAs raise the industry bar and demonstrate BellSouth's commitment to its customers by automatically crediting customer accounts if objectives are missed. The BellSouth SLAs apply to the extensive and highly scaleable portfolio of BellSouth Business Internet services, including the recent additions of ATM Internet Access, NxT1 Internet Access, Private Line Internet Access and Packaged Frame Relay DS3 Internet Access.

With today's announcement, businesses with the BellSouth dedicated Internet access will enjoy a new level of confidence through a number of progressive features, including:

--   Proactive monitoring of performance against all objectives and
     automatic issuing of credits;
--   Guaranteed network availability of 99.9 percent;
--   Guaranteed average latency of 85 milliseconds or less for
     round-trip transmissions;
--   100 percent guaranteed on-time installation of dedicated Internet
     access service;
--   Mean-Time-To-Repair (MTTR) objective of four hours or less.

&uot;Today's successful e-businesses demand consistent, reliable Internet access to deliver their products and services to their customers,&uot; said Scott Waid, director for BellSouth Business Internet Services. &uot;We know these businesses cannot afford and will not accept Internet downtime. Our Internet service level guarantees demonstrate the BellSouth commitment to superior levels of quality and operational excellence, which our customers expect.&uot;

Businesses are increasingly dependent upon the Internet, not only to increase revenues through online sales, but also to generate customer awareness and improve operational efficiencies. A business' loss of Internet access, or simply a reduction in Internet performance, can result in significant financial losses, including missed opportunities, increased time to market and negative publicity. These potential threats to e-businesses mandate stringent service level agreements for Internet-based services.

By guaranteeing network availability of 99.9 percent, BellSouth provides businesses with the assurance that its Internet access will be available, and can be depended on for mission-critical applications. If this performance level is missed, businesses will automatically receive credits equal to fees for a full day's service for each hour, or fraction thereof, of unavailability.

The BellSouth latency guarantee ensures that customers can expect a fast and reliable Internet connection. The SLA commits to average round trip transmissions of 85 milliseconds or less between major BellSouth managed facilities. If the average speed for the month falls below the guaranteed average, BellSouth will credit the business 10 percent of the monthly recurring charge for its dedicated Internet access service.

In addition, BellSouth guarantees on-time installations 100 percent of the time. This provision guarantees a business that its premise equipment, local loop and/or port connections are installed when it needs them, on time. Should this installation requirement be missed, the customer will receive a credit for the entire cost of installation.

The BellSouth dedicated Internet access SLAs, with proactive crediting and rigorous objectives, offer one of the strongest performance commitments in the industry. BellSouth customers can automatically benefit from this offer, realizing additional value while taking advantage of the nationally recognized BellSouth Business Internet Services.

These Internet performance guarantees are the latest in a series of formalized, robust service level agreements from BellSouth. For more information on this and other innovative business offers from BellSouth, companies should contact their account representative, or visit BellSouth's Internet Services Web site at www.biz.bellsouth.net.

BellSouth Business Internet Services delivers the world-class security, reliability and customer service that companies have come to expect from one of the nation's top-rated Internet service providers. In an independent survey conducted by Survey.com for Inter@ctive Week, its services were recently recognized as having the highest level of satisfied customers over all other major national providers. In addition, BellSouth has demonstrated a consistent track record of Internet performance, earning multiple A+ ratings from April through December 1999 by Inverse Network Technology, a leading independent firm that measures the performance and reliability of large ISPs nationwide. These distinctions, along with Cisco Powered Network certification, redundant Internet backbone links, 24x7 proactive monitoring and management, low user-to-modem ratios and dedicated connections, place BellSouth's Internet infrastructure second to none.

BellSouth is a $25 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, cable and digital TV, advertising and publishing, and Internet and data services to nearly 36 million customers in 20 countries worldwide. BellSouth's Web site is located at http://www.bellsouth.com.