BellSouth Offers Wholesale Customers Flat Rate Pricing with Volume Discounts for Fast Packet Services.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 1, 2000

Managed Shared Packet Services first step in wholesale data strategy

BellSouth Interconnection Services, BellSouth's (NYSE: BLS) wholesale business unit, today introduced Managed Shared Packet Services (MSPS), offering flat rate pricing that combines BellSouth frame relay or ATM network port, loop and transport within a metropolitan service area. Wholesale customers such as interexchange carriers (IXCs) and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) can use MSPS to aggregate data traffic in the most efficient manner to reduce expenses while preserving their capital.

"MSPS demonstrates the creativity BellSouth brings to its customers and the wholesale telecom marketplace," said Glen Estell, president of BellSouth Interconnection Services. "This new offer leverages additional traffic on BellSouth's fast packet networks, providing economies of scale that allow us to pass on cost-effective, flat-rate pricing to our customers."

The MSPS offering includes BellSouth Managed Shared Frame Relay Service or BellSouth Managed Shared ATM Service solutions. Managed Shared Frame Relay Service is available at speeds of 56/64 Kbps, 1.5 Mbps and 44 Mbps. Managed Shared ATM Service is available at speeds of 1.5 Mbps, 44 Mbps, 149 Mbps and 599 Mbps. The new volume and term flat-rate pricing program offers significant discounts for commitments of $2 million or $5 million per month, for terms including 36, 60 or 84 months. Customers with volumes of $5 million per month and a seven-year commitment can receive a discount of up to 54 percent. This offer was filed as an interstate tariff on May 22.

In addition to easy pricing and low cost traffic aggregation, MSPS can be ordered and billed using the same electronic interfaces that customers are most familiar with, including access service request (ASR) ordering and carrier access billing system (CABS).

"We're taking an aggressive approach to meeting our wholesale customers' needs with flexible and customized solutions," said Jose Blanco, product manager, BellSouth Interconnection Services. "MSPS is just the first installment in a comprehensive wholesale data strategy."

According to Blanco, BellSouth's fast packet services strategy is to move these capabilities onto a massively shared ATM backbone infrastructure that supports multiple service aggregation. This ATM backbone infrastructure will initially be used to transport frame relay and ADSL traffic, as well as native ATM services. Eventually, voice services and tandem switch interconnections will be supported via large, efficient ATM interconnections between carrier networks. Providers and end-users alike will benefit from the economies of scale and the robustness of packet technology, which will automatically reroute and restore traffic. Immediate next steps from BellSouth, says Blanco, include additional Frame Relay and ATM service enhancements and the introduction of Customer Network Management.

"BellSouth Fast Packet Customer Network Management (CNM) will allow customers to monitor service performance on BellSouth's network and receive alarms in near-real time," notes Blanco. "By the middle of next year, BellSouth's wholesale customers will be offered configuration management capabilities that will enable them to add, change or disconnect virtual circuits themselves via electronic interfaces."

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. Created in 1997 as a separate business unit, BellSouth Interconnection Services is responsible for more than $4 billion in annual revenue and has more than 700 sales and marketing professionals and nearly 2,400 operations center experts.

BellSouth is a $25 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications services, Internet, data and e-commerce applications, wireless communications, entertainment services, and online and directory advertising to nearly 39 million customers in 19 countries worldwide.