British Telecommunications --BT-- plc Organization Forms Agreement with F5 Networks to Incorporate F5 Products in Solution Offerings to Global Customers.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 11, 2000

Agreement Allows the Integrated Network Solutions Group of

BT Syncordia Global Solutions (BTSGS) to Resell

F5 Networks' Internet Traffic and Content Management Products

F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV), a leading provider of Internet traffic and content management (iTCM) products, and British Telecommunications (BT) plc, a leading international communications group, today announced a non-exclusive agreement for the Integrated Network Solutions (INS) Group of BT Syncordia Global Solutions (BTSGS) to resell F5 Networks suite of iTCM products.

BTSGS offers single-source integrated IP-based custom contracts that include hosted IP Applications, Internet access and IP network services to multinational corporations throughout the world. This agreement enables BT to sell all of F5's products, including BIG-IP(R), 3-DNS(R), and GLOBAL-SITE(TM) Controllers and SEE-IT(TM) Network Manager, when delivering services to customers.

"BT is witnessing phenomenal growth of IP-based networks by mainstream global companies across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific," said Terence Regan, Director -- Integrated Network Solutions. "Correspondingly, we see a growing demand for F5's iTCM products to fortify customer network performance, optimize end-user quality, ensure application availability and balance pay loads across the global Internet. Based on the robust architecture of F5 products, INS sees this supply agreement as a winning relationship for both companies. Our partnership with F5 is continued evidence of BT's move from the business of networking to the networking of business."

F5 Networks' iTCM products give e-Businesses improved control over the performance of their network infrastructure, helping to ensure that Internet sites are always available and deliver the proper content -- quickly. Large enterprises, service providers and e-commerce companies utilize F5 products to provide new levels of fault tolerance for networks by shielding users from system failure; to optimize response times to user requests and data flow; and to cost-effectively manage an enterprise-wide Internet infrastructure.

"British Telecommunications is a leading supplier of globally-distributed Internet content through its global network platforms. BT has expansive reach and rich service offerings that provide customers with cost-effective, scalable, and easy-to-deploy methods of moving internet/intranet/extranet application functions closer to the edges of the network for improved performance," said Tom Pettigrew, Vice President of Corporate Development at F5 Networks. "Our relationship with BT will complement their services and help global enterprises to enhance IP application delivery to enterprises conducting e-Business on a worldwide scale by incorporating F5 iTCM products."

About British Telecommunications plc

BT is one of the world's leading providers of telecommunications services and one of Europe's largest private sector companies. Its principal activities include local, long distance and international telecommunications services, mobile communications, IP broadband services, Internet services and IT solutions. In the United Kingdom, BT serves more than 28 million exchange lines and seven million mobile customers. International direct-dialed telephone service is available to more than 200 countries and other overseas territories -- covering 99 percent of the 800 million global telephones. BT has extensive global presence with operations in the USA and more than 30 countries. Further, BT has ventures in the Republic of Ireland, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Latin America and India. BT and AT&T have also created Concert Communications, the leading global telecommunications company serving multi-national business customers, international carriers and Internet service providers worldwide. In the year to March 31, 2000, BT's total turnover, including its share of its ventures' turnover, was 21,903m pounds sterling with a pre-tax profit of 2,942m pounds sterling. BT plc is located on the web at www.BT.com.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the leader in Internet Traffic and Content Management (iTCM). Our award winning integrated suite of high-performance best of breed products provide an end-to-end solution for automatically and intelligently managing Internet content and traffic -- globally. Our products remove bandwidth congestion and optimize the availability and speed of mission-critical Internet servers and applications, including web publishing, content delivery, e-commerce, caching, firewalls and more. F5 Networks helps companies avoid the risk of being burdened with ill-performing networks that do not meet end user expectations, while enabling network administrators to better control and predict the performance of their e-Business infrastructure. Our products are widely deployed in large enterprises, the top service providers, financial institutions, government agencies, healthcare, and portals throughout the world. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Germany, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com.

F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV) Internet Traffic Management products support a wide range of operating systems and hardware platforms including those from: Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW), Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HWP), Compaq (NYSE:CPQ), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL), IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Intel (Nasdaq:INTC). F5 products work with leading IP-based applications, including legacy host, mainframe, Java, CORBA-based, and client/server applications from vendors such as SAP (NYSE:SAP), BAAN (Nasdaq:BAANF), Novell (Nasdaq:NOVL), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL), and PeopleSoft (Nasdaq:PSFT).

This press release may contain forward-looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts", "potential" or "continue" or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the Company's filings with the SEC.