Bell Atlantic Enhances Its Business Internet Access Services with Networking Management Capability

Bell Atlantic Enhances Its Business Internet Access Services with Network Management Capability

Reports Now Available to Business Internet Access Customers

April 21, 1998

RESTON, Va. -- Businesses using Bell Atlantic's high-speed, dedicated
Internet access services now can access on-line reports on the amount
and type of data traffic moving over their Internet connections on a
daily, weekly or monthly basis.

This capability is available to high-speed Internet access customers
with a contract of one year or longer. Reports are as little as $50 a
month for 56 kilobit per second (kbs) access service and $100 a month
for all other speeds and types of dedicated access.

Usage rates, line loads, and the numbers of packets, bits and frames
sent and received are included in the information tracked by Bell
Atlantic's new Statistics View Report service. The reports can be
viewed on the World Wide Web at a secure, password-protected Web site
or can be downloaded. The statistics are presented in both graphical
and tabular formats.

"As the importance of the Internet continues to grow, businesses have
an increasing need to monitor and understand the use of their Internet
connections," said Myles Mendelsohn, vice president-Service Delivery
for Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions. "Bell Atlantic's Statistics
View Report service offers customers daily access to data on their
organization's Internet connectivity usage. This is a great tool that
will help customers optimize their Internet-related connections and
applications."

Bell Atlantic's Statistics View Reports can assist data
communications managers in network planning. They can better
anticipate the need to upgrade the bandwidth or speed of their
Internet connections to avoid congestion by watching the load on a
given circuit. A manager might decide to partition work groups onto
separate circuits, for instance, after monitoring the volume and type
of data traffic moving across a given Internet connection during
different periods in the day or week.

The Internet usage reports are based on information sampled at
10-minute intervals each day. Up to one year's worth of historical
trend data also will be compiled and made available to customers so
they can compare their Internet traffic patterns today with one year
ago.

Customers interested in learning more about Bell Atlantic's Statistics
View Reports service or other Internet-related services the company
offers can call 1-800-252-8444, or send e-mail to
baissales@bellatlantic.net. Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions' Web site
at http://biz.bellatlantic.net/statview also provides more details
about Statistics View Reports.

Bell Atlantic Internet Solutions, Inc. is the unit of Bell Atlantic
that delivers a full range of Internet services to businesses,
governments and consumers -- from Internet access to electronic mail
to World Wide Web site production and hosting.

"Providing these Internet access management reports is consistent with
Bell Atlantic's pledge to offer quality products and services that
meet individual customer needs," said Mendelsohn. "Our introduction
of the Statistics View Reports service is another indication of Bell
Atlantic's commitment to becoming the business customer's first choice
for Internet-based services."

Bell Atlantic - formed through the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX -
is at the forefront of the new communications and information
industry. With 40.5 million telephone access lines and six million
wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic companies are premier
providers of advanced wireline voice and data services, market leaders
in wireless services and the world's largest publishers of directory
information. Bell Atlantic companies are also among the world's
largest investors in high-growth global communications markets, with
operations and investments in 21 countries.

Sidebar on Bell Atlantic's Statistics View Reports

Three types of Statistics View Reports currently are available to Bell
Atlantic dedicated Internet access customers with contracts of one
year or more . The different reports are based on the underlying
transport service a customer has purchased: SMDS (switched
multi-megabit data service), frame relay or private line. The reports
cost $100 a month, except for the 56 kbs service reports that are $50
monthly.

Report Types

Load Reports (for SMDS and private line customers) -
provide a graphical view of the actual total bandwidth used on
the circuit as a percentage of the maximum theoretical bandwidth
of the transport circuit. The total line load is further
separated into views of the load coming in (load in) and the load
going out (load out).

Load Reports (for frame relay customers) -
provide a graphical view of the actual bandwidth used on the
circuit as a percentage of the committed information rate - or
bandwidth -- of the frame relay "permanent virtual circuit," or
PVC. The total line load is further separated into views of the
load in and load out.

Packet Rate Reports -
provide a graphical view of the actual number of data packets,
error packets and discarded packets moving across the circuit at
various points in time.

Frame Relay Reports -
provide a graphical view of the actual number of frames, BECN
frames and FECN frames traversing the transport circuit at
various points in time. BECN and FECN refer to "Forward and
Backward Explicit Congestion Notification" bits that are sent by
the frame relay network to access equipment responsible for
restricting data flow when there is network congestion.

Bits Per Second Reports -
provide a graphical view of the actual number of bits moving in,
bits moving out and total number of bits moving across the
transport circuit at various points in time.

In addition to the graphical format (a choice of Postscript or GIF),
the reports are available in tabular format (ASCII). The daily
reports are published at the Web site daily (seven days a week), the
weekly reports are published every Monday, and the monthly reports are
published on the first calendar day of each month.