Bell Atlantic Expands High-Speed Internet Access to Businesses in New York Metropolitan Area and Eastern Massachusetts

Bell Atlantic Expands High-Speed Internet Access to
Businesses
in New York Metropolitan Area and Eastern
Massachusetts

Company Offers Competitive Prices, Industry Leading Service
Level Guarantee and 24-Hour Customer Care

June 16, 1999

NEW YORK -- Businesses, schools and governments in New
York and Boston now can turn to Bell Atlantic for high-speed, affordable
Internet access service.

Bell Atlantic's Data Solutions Group is offering Internet
connections for business customers in these markets. The company plans
to roll out the service throughout the remainder of its Northeast region by
the end of 2000.

Bell Atlantic has been offering mass market Internet access,
business Internet access and Web services to customers in the mid-
Atlantic region since 1996.

Bell Atlantic is offering three types of high-speed Internet
connections--Frame Relay, Private Line and Asynchronous Transfer
Mode (ATM)--to provide business customers with maximum flexibility
and choice. All three options ride on Bell Atlantic's high-speed,
redundant backbone network. A technical support help desk is available
around the clock for the services.

"Bell Atlantic's services provide effective and affordable
solutions that meet the Internet needs of business," said Joe Farina,
president and chief executive officer of Bell Atlantic's Data Solutions
Group. "We have designed our Internet network from scratch to
meet the toughest requirements of our business customers."

In a separate announcement, Bell Atlantic today introduced its
new Managed Virtual Private Network (VPN) Service to enable
businesses to create intranets and extranets over Bell Atlantic's IP
(Internet protocol) network or the Internet. By offering Managed VPN
via its own high-speed Internet access connections, the Data Solutions
Group is able to deliver higher quality service and ensure tighter
management of the service level agreements that customers require.

Included at no extra charge with Bell Atlantic's high-speed Internet
solutions are: domain name registration; domain name services; Internet
addresses; mail relay services; service level agreements (SLAs) and
technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Optional services
include Usenet news group access, electronic mail, security and firewall
solutions, network management reports, and the installation of any data
communications equipment that might be needed.

Dedicated Internet Access Services at 1.5 megabits per second
(Mbps) for a typical business located two miles from one of Bell Atlantic's
Internet access nodes costs about $1,400 a month. This price includes
both transport and Internet access charges. There is a one-time, set-up fee
of $500. Solutions ranging from 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 155
Mbps are available, all delivered over a Cisco Powered Network.*

"Effective use of the Internet is now a competitive necessity
for all types and sizes of businesses," said Joe DiPeppe, senior
product manager, Dedicated Internet Access Service for the Data
Solutions Group. "Bell Atlantic's Data Solutions Group provides a
complete suite of Internet services and capabilities to aid businesses in
getting online -- from transport and access to equipment and value-added
services."

A Network Customers Can Count On

The Data Solutions Group is building a series of reliable Internet
networks throughout its region, which stretches from Maine to Virginia.
The networks -- designed and engineered for business-grade Internet
traffic -- can easily expand to handle new and growing business customers.
Each network component has been engineered for redundancy, including
multiple routers, switches and circuits.

The networks can detect problems and instantly reroute data traffic
to alternate switches and backup circuits without any interruption to
service. In the unlikely event of a service outage of more than 30 minutes
within a 24-hour period, customers will be credited for the equivalent of
one full day of service.

High-Speed Access Comes in Three Flavors

From e-commerce to e-mail, Web marketing to virtual private
networking, Bell Atlantic will work with customers to determine which
high-speed Internet connection best fits the needs of their business. The
company is offering the following options:

Frame Relay Internet Access
Frame Relay Internet connections deliver dedicated access at
speeds from 56 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps with no dialing, no setup and no
waiting. Frame Relay is among the most reliable, cost-effective ways to
support a number of wide area network applications including: Internet
access; low-to-moderate volume Web sites; ongoing, two-way
connectivity between local data networks; fast access to Internet e-mail
and newsgroups, and multimedia presentations and video.

Private Line Internet Access
Private Line Internet Access is ideal for businesses that require
guaranteed bandwidth to handle a relatively predictable, high-volume of
traffic between a company's location and the Internet. This access option
provides speeds that range from 56 Kbps to 45 Mbps. Pricing for Private
Line service is based on distance from the nearest Data Solutions Group
Bell Atlantic facility.

ATM
Bell Atlantic's ATM/Cell Relay Internet Connection provides a
dedicated, turbo-charged connection to the Internet at speeds ranging from
384 Kbps to 155 Mbp-- one of the fastest Internet transport option in the
industry. ATM Internet Access is flexible enough to support voice, video
and data over the same network. And secure enough to provide reliable
transport for a company's mission critical applications such as payroll,
billing and e-commerce.

About Bell Atlantic Data Solutions Group
Bell Atlantic Data Solutions Group (DSG) www.ba-dsg.com is dedicated
to providing globally integrated network solutions that seamlessly connect
businesses with their customers, partners and employees. DSG provides
all aspects of data networking from the management and operation of
customer networks and network integration, to network transport and
advanced IP services such as intranets and extranets, virtual private
networks, web hosting and multimedia services.

About Bell Atlantic
Bell Atlantic is at the forefront of the new communications and
information industry. With 43 million telephone access lines and nine
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 23 countries.

* Cisco and Cisco powered network are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc.