Siemens Stromberg-Carlson to begin shipments of EWSD central office switches to GST Telecommunications in first quarter, 1997.

BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 1996--

-- Follow-up from $226 million financing deal announced

in October --

Siemens Stromberg-Carlson will begin shipments of its EWSD central office switches to GST Telecommunications Inc. (ASE:GST) by the first quarter of 1997.

The shipments follow-up from Siemens financing deal with GST announced in October, covering equipment, software and services up to $226 million.

GST facilities located in Houston will receive the first shipment of switches. Over the next few months, Siemens will continue to ship switches to other GST locations in the western United States.

In October, Siemens provided GST with a product financing package of $116 million for EWSD switches and services over the next three years. In addition, Siemens and GST have the option to expand the agreement to include EWSD switches and services, with an additional $110 million in financing.

"Siemens has the financial strength and the flexibility to help customers such as GST get the best switching equipment to succeed in the local and long-distance telephone market," said Fred Fromm, president & CEO of Siemens Stromberg-Carlson.

"The Siemens ESWD platform has proven its reliability worldwide. The EWSD is capable of integrated long distance and local service, which is crucial to GST. This will certainly facilitate our efforts to roll out a single- source solution to our end-user customers," said John Warta, president & CEO of GST Telecommunications.

The EWSD digital central office, which switches voice and data calls, has been a major success with service providers in North America and around the world. More than 118 million ports of EWSD capacity are now in service or on order. Under the Siemens Stromberg-Carlson banner in the U.S., EWSD systems lead in advanced technologies such as National ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and AIN (Advanced Intelligent Network) services. Capable of switching local, long distance and wireless traffic on the same integrated platform, the EWSD switch is a feature-rich system that can serve more than 100,000 subscriber lines/trunks and is suited to metropolitan and suburban installations.

GST Telecommunications Inc., headquartered in Vancouver, Wash., currently operates networks in 17 cities and has 31 additional networks under development in the western United States and Hawaii. The company provides a broad range of integrated telecommunications products and services through the development and operation of competitive access and other telecommunications networks. GST has secured a PUC-approved interconnection agreement with GTE in California and is striving towards comprehensive interconnection agreements in all of its related service areas. GST's strategy is to cluster several cities in each state that it enters in order to achieve synergy and maximum opportunity within each service territory. In addition, the company manufactures telecommunications switching equipment and provides network management and billing systems through its wholly owned subsidiary, National Applied Computer Technologies Inc., of Orem, Utah. Internet: http://www.gstcorp.com

Siemens Stromberg-Carlson, headquartered in Boca Raton, is a leading provider of telecommunications equipment to the public network service providers in North America. The company designs and manufactures digital central office switching equipment, broadband switching systems, wireless solutions, end-to-end multimedia solutions, Internet solutions, telecommunication network management products, customer premise equipment and transmission products. Siemens Stromberg-Carlson is a subsidiary of Siemens AG, which has annual revenues of $61 billion and is present in 190 countries. Internet: http://www.ssc.siemens.com.

EWSD is a registered trademark of Siemens -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: In the World Wide Web address noted in this news release, there is a double slash between http: and www.gstcorp.com. These symbols may not appear properly in some systems.

In the World Wide Web address noted in this news release, there is a double slash between http: and www.ssc.siemens.com . These symbols may not appear properly in some systems.

In the Internet/email address noted in this news release, there is an "at" symbol between robert.bartolotta and ssc.siemens.com. This symbol may not appear properly in some systems.

CONTACT: Siemens Stromberg-Carlson, Boca Raton

Robert Bartolotta, 561/955-3140

[e-mail]

or

GST Telecommunications

Rob Blankstein, 800/667-4366