Consumer Alert; What If Your Power Goes Out? Important Reminders From Pacific Bell.

News Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 17, 2001

With rolling blackouts now affecting California, some consumers may need to take a few precautions to make sure they do not lose telephone service.

Pacific Bell's telecommunications network remains fully operational during the rolling blackouts that California is now experiencing. Even if a Pacific Bell central office is hit by a blackout and loses commercial power, the phone network will continue to operate. That's because Pacific Bell's network has been designed and engineered with dependable back up power sources to ensure network reliability. The network is constantly monitored 24 hours a day.

There remains the possibility that customers lose phone service if they are using equipment depending on electricity. So Pacific Bell wants to be sure that its customers have emergency preparedness strategies and alternatives in place so they continue to receive calls and messages when there is no electrical power. Here are some reminders:

-- Make sure you have at least one telephone in your home and office that does
not use an electrical outlet. Cordless phones, while convenient, don't work in
power outages. So customers should always have on hand a regular non-
electrically powered telephone that can quickly plug into a telephone jack.

-- Don't count on answering machines during an outage. Answering machines, and
the telephones attached to them depend on electricity and will not operate
during a blackout. Pacific Bell Voice Mail for businesses, and The Message
Center, Pacific Bell's residential voicemail, will be fully operational. You
can continue to get calls and retrieve messages, and you can leave messages for
others. Voicemail with pager notification has the capability to automatically
notify you of each incoming call.

-- If you want to leave your home or office because of a blackout, use call
forwarding to transfer calls to another location or PCS phone.

-- Make sure you have a charged backup battery for your PCS phone.

Businesses served by Pacific Bell Centrex will not lose telephone service in a blackout because the power is being supplied from the Pacific Bell central office. Customers using PBX equipment will suffer a loss of dial tone unless their systems are equipped with backup capability. Businesses using PBX equipment should have backup plans for the rolling blackouts. This may include installation of Centrex for backup reliability.

Pacific Bell Internet supplies its own power, so during a blackout customers could continue with Internet access as long as they have battery power, or some other means, to supply power to their computers. Customers' Web sites will continue to be available.

DSL remains available, as long as computers have their own power source.

While Pacific Bell's redundant network will continue to process phone calls, it is possible other facilities could be temporarily affected by a blackout. Systems are in place so that calls to a facility such as a customer service center could be quickly re-routed to a separate center, with little impact on customers.