COLT Telecom Group Chooses SMARTS InCharge to Guarantee Highest Level of Service Availability.

Business/Technology Editors

WHITE PLAINS, NY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 2001

SMARTS, the architect of the first fully automated service assurance solutions for enterprises and service providers, today announced that COLT Telecom Group plc, a leading supplier of integrated business network and application solutions in Europe, has selected the full InCharge suite of solutions to manage the network and systems environments within 11 of its Internet Solution Centers (ISCs). The COLT ISCs are a key infrastructure asset of COLT Telecom Group plc, and are located in Europe's major commercial centers.

"The ISCs are a hosting facility for high value corporate customers. Typically there are over 100 client networks hosted within each ISC so naturally this means that the infrastructure within the center is highly complex," said Anthony Carroll, COLT Technical Services Manager. "Our customers all share the requirement that their networks are operating as close to 100 per cent of the time as possible. As a result, a key requirement for COLT was to select a product that would maintain service levels, so customers can go about running their business without fear of network disruption."

As they operate a large number of ISCs, COLT required a solution with the flexibility to grow in line with the expansion of the company's network. COLT evaluated SMARTS InCharge following a thorough review of other products in the market. InCharge provides the service provider with plenty of functionality, rapid implementation time and significant results in a short time frame, thereby allowing it to provide superior service to customers

Andrew Mallaband, area director, Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) operations at SMARTS, said, "For organizations to obtain competitive advantage they must differentiate themselves with the efficient management of the service delivery infrastructure. By deploying SMARTS InCharge, COLT will continue to offer its customers the highest levels of service available on the market today."

About COLT

COLT Telecom Group plc is a leading provider of high bandwidth data, voice and advanced telecommunication services to business and governmental customers in Europe. It currently has operations in 27 European cities in eleven countries, and plans to be providing services in 32 cities by the end of 2001. In addition COLT provides Internet connectivity, Internet hosting and enables application services in 10 European countries, with a backbone reaching into the US and more than 450 peering agreements. COLT Internet Solution Centres (ISCs) have been built in 13 cities totaling more than 800,000 square feet (74,000 square metres) of hosting space. During the year ended December 2000, COLT's turnover was (pound)640.8 million and it carried 15.8 billion switched minutes of traffic. During the quarter ended March 2001, COLT's turnover was (pound)209.4 million. At March 31, 2001, COLT had installed 3,442 route kilometres of fibre-optic cables in its city-networks, provided 10.2 million private wire voice grade equivalents, and had 6,298 buildings connected to its networks. COLT Telecom Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (CTM.L) and NASDAQ (COLT). Information about COLT and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.colt-telecom.com

About SMARTS

SMARTS (System Management ARTS Incorporated) provides proactive management solutions for assuring service delivery to enterprises and service providers. These applications automatically map the infrastructure, monitor it and correlate the data across complex relationships to diagnose the authentic problem(TM). The InCharge suite of products works off the shelf to analyze key problems affecting performance and availability of today's infrastructure resulting in improved quality of service, and increased productivity of scarce resources such as experienced professionals. Included among the company's customers are Accenture, Ameritrade, AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Corning, CSC, FedEx, Reuters, Qwest and WorldCom. For more information, visit the SMARTS web site at http://www.smarts.com.

SMARTS, InCharge, Authentic Problem, Codebook Correlation Technology, Instant Results Technology, and Graphical Visualization are trademarks of System Management ARTS Incorporated. The InCharge products mentioned in this document are covered by pending applications and one or more of the following U.S. patents: 5,528,516 and 5,661,668. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.