GTE adopts new pricing plan for its GTE.net Internet access service.

DALLAS -- Beginning Nov. 1, 1998, GTE will adopt a new pricing plan for its GTE.net Internet access service. The new plan is designed to reduce network congestion and maintain reasonable pricing for all GTE.net users.

Under the new pricing, customers will pay their current basic monthly rate of $19.95 and receive 100 hours of on-line time per month. Monthly usage over 100 hours will be billed at $1 per hour. Similar pricing plans were instituted earlier this year by other major Internet service providers.

"The number-one complaint people have about Internet services is getting a busy signal when they try to log on," said Alex Coleman, Vice-President/General Manager-Online Services for GTE Internetworking. "As use of the Internet continues to grow explosively, we want to ensure that the GTE.net service is as reliable as possible. Our new pricing decision is all about improving service quality for our customers and delivering a great product for a fair price."

Ninety percent of GTE.net customers use the service less than 100 hours a month. "The vast majority of our customers will see no change in their bill under the new plan and will experience enhanced network reliability," said Coleman.

Ten percent of GTE.net customers currently utilize 65 percent of its network. For those more active Internet customers, GTE offers alternative packages that deliver increased access speeds for greater online efficiency. "Some of our heavy users run small businesses, or they simply want an 'always-on' connection,'" said Coleman. "These people may benefit from moving to our widely-available LAN ISDN service, where the usage cap is 200 hours, or to ADSL as it becomes available, which offers very high speed access that is unlimited."

GTE.net customers have been informed about the new pricing and have been provided an August usage summary to help them anticipate their future usage levels. Also beginning Nov. 1, GTE will offer an online manager tool that helps customers keep track of their Internet usage. "Some people just keep their connection up all the time, whether they are using it or not, or they lose track of time while online," said Coleman. "The online manager tool and our new pricing are among the many steps we've taken to help customers with self-provisioning and managing their service profile."

GTE Internetworking offers a full spectrum of integrated Internet services using IP networking technologies, including dial-up and dedicated Internet access, high-performance Web hosting, managed Internet security, network management, systems integration and Web-based applications development for integrating the Internet into business operations. The company is a unit of GTE Corporation (NYSE:GTE), one of the world's largest telecommunications companies and a leading provider of integrated telecommunications services. More information about GTE Internetworking and GTE can be found on the Internet at http://www.gte.com.
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