BellSouth Rolls Out Industry-Leading Frame Relay Service; Breaking Down `Bandwidth-on-Demand' Barriers for Business.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001

`Industry First' Subrate T3 Service Provides Cost-Effective Solution

with Rapid Scalability and Reduced Provisioning Intervals

BellSouth (NYSE: BLS), an industry leader in frame relay technology, today announced a new frame relay service that harnesses the speed and power of this broadband technology to offer BellSouth business customers true bandwidth on demand from 3Mbps up to 44.2Mbps.

With today's announcement, BellSouth is the first and only data network provider offering Subrate T3 service, raising the bar for broadband business service and providing customers the rapid scalability and reliability needed for success in today's evolving electronic marketplace.

"This first-in-industry offer provides the ability for frame relay customers to grow service bandwidth, at price points that avoid unnecessary expense, as their needs grow," said Rob Carlson, Current Analysis, senior analyst, Network Services. "BellSouth's innovative approach to providing true bandwidth on demand offers customers the flexibility and scalability needed when experiencing rapid growth."

BellSouth's Subrate T3 technology provides easy access to increased bandwidth, eliminating the provisioning time and expense required to bond multiple T1s. With more than 80,000 BellSouth Frame Relay customer sites throughout the Southeast, BellSouth recognized that users need a cost-effective, flexible solution that easily expands beyond T1 speeds.

"The availability of BellSouth's Subrate T3 helps fill that demand by giving users a good migration path over the large bandwidth gap from multilink frame relay to T3," said Ron Kaplan, senior research analyst for the international industry analyst firm, IDC.

"BellSouth's new Subrate T3 Frame Relay service is the latest addition to our robust portfolio, and is ideal for companies concerned with ensuring greater business continuity as their business expands," said Cindy Hamrin, vice president of BellSouth Business Core Product Marketing. "It also integrates with all other frame relay functionality, including BellSouth's Intelligent PVC, which automatically reroutes traffic in the case of a host computer outage. We believe this product will meet the requirements of a majority of our customers whose Internet and LAN traffic needs have become more demanding."

As the bandwidth explosion continues, business customers are eclipsing T1 speeds. According to IDC research, there is a strong trend in the U.S. frame relay market to higher port speeds. In the local frame relay market, IDC expects fractional T3 ports to grow by a 63% compounded annual growth rate over 5 years. BellSouth's new Subrate T3 Frame Relay service offers businesses the ability to build flexible networks from the ground up, and allows for rapid expandability. This gives customers access to increased speeds via their current infrastructure, and superior network control without additional equipment costs.

"As an Internet Service Provider, we have embraced the new Subrate T3 product released by BellSouth," said Steve Harris, Chief Operating Officer of WebUnited, a Miami, Florida-based ISP. "The Subrate T3 has provided unlimited bandwidth potential for our customers that have maximized usage of standard T1 or multiple T1 connections. It is a true bandwidth-on-demand product without the time constraints normally associated with bandwidth expansion."

      BellSouth's Subrate T3 service offers frame relay customers many
new options. Customer benefits include:

      --  Bandwidth Control - giving customers control of their network

      --  Rapid scalability - allowing for business development and
        growth

      --  Short provisioning intervals - eliminating lengthy delays
        during growth cycles

      --  No additional CPE purchases when increasing speed - offering
        cost-effective growth

      --  Fewer facilities - providing targeted trouble shooting

Recognized as one of the industry's leading frame relay providers, BellSouth specializes in aiding customers with their business continuity needs, and offers a complete portfolio of backup contingency plans for customer frame relay networks. BellSouth's suite of redundant frame relay services provides businesses with the reliability, scalability, and dependability they require, including:

      --  Intelligent PVCs - automatically detects outages and reroutes
        data to a backup host

      --  Backup Frame Relay - carries frame traffic if primary frame
        relay service goes down

      --  Frame Relay Secure - An ISDN Dial-around service - facilitates
        routing around frame network in case of an outage at a remote
        site

      --  SmartRing(R) - a self healing redundant connection to customer
        locations

The Subrate T3 is another addition to BellSouth's growing "e-Platform" initiative, allowing companies to access a data platform that is unmatched in the Southeast. The Subrate T3 announcement complements the opening of the first e-Business Centers in Atlanta and Miami, and joins a data platform that includes some 3.5 million miles of fiber optic cable, 1,650 central offices, 50 BellSouth Managed Facilities, 17,000 SONET rings and over 500 fast-packet switches. With broadband connectivity, business customers are leveraging BellSouth's "e-Platform" to take advantage of reduced latency, continuous availability, improved caching, greater bandwidth and speed, closer proximity to end-users, and better customer performance.

About BellSouth Corporation

BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications services company headquartered in Atlanta, GA, serving more than 44 million customers in the United States and 16 other countries. Consistently recognized for customer satisfaction, BellSouth provides a full array of broadband data and e-commerce solutions to business customers, including Web hosting and other Internet services. In the residential market, BellSouth offers DSL high-speed Internet access, advanced voice features and other services. BellSouth also provides online and directory advertising services, including BellSouth(R) RealPages(SM).com. BellSouth owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless company, which provides innovative wireless data.