LDDS WorldCom, Inc. Awarded Certificate To Offer Local Service In Connecticut, Illinois, California & Texas

JACKSON, Miss. (February 29, 1996) --

LDDS WorldCom has received permission from state regulators in
Connecticut, Illinois, California and Texas to provide customers a
full range of local telephone exchange services, an important
capability that will serve as a complement to its comprehensive set
of national and international service offerings.

"We applaud commissioners in these and other states for
moving quickly toward providing consumers the benefits of viable
competition in the local marketplace," said Bernard J. Ebbers,
President and Chief Executive Officer of LDDS WorldCom.

LDDS WorldCom's plans for providing service to specific
markets are dependent upon regulators addressing pending policy
issues affecting local service resale, including pricing guidelines
as well as network interconnection and number portability approaches,
Ebbers noted.

Public utility commissions in each state acted upon LDDS
WorldCom's applications filed last year to provide local service
on a resale basis. In Illinois, initial permission is provided to
address the Chicago-area market. The certificates cover markets
statewide in Connecticut, California and Texas.

LDDS WorldCom also has applications pending in several other
states.

In Connecticut, Illinois, California and Texas, additional
hearings and negotiations are planned that are expected to provide a
logical framework within which LDDS WorldCom will be able to resell
service currently provided only by incumbent local exchange
carriers.

Since new federal telecommunications legislation took effect
February 8, LDDS WorldCom has announced agreements with several local
exchange carriers, allowing these local providers to offer consumers
long distance service on a resale basis under the provisions of the
new law.

"The ability to obtain both local and long distance service
on a one-stop' basis is a primary customer benefit arising from
this rapidly changing federal and state regulatory environment,"
Ebbers said. "We expect LDDS WorldCom to be at the forefront in
enabling these integrated solutions.

"Our company always has been a catalyst for competition and
for the innovation and economies competition can bring to the
marketplace.

"Telecommunications users must have real choices among local
providers, as they do among long distance carriers, in order to have
access to more features and to obtain optimum value," Ebbers
said. "We want to assure our customers that LDDS WorldCom will
continue to play a key role in defining these markets."

Ebbers said LDDS WorldCom, as one of the largest long distance
providers in the United States, has a history of offering a fully
integrated service package to customers.

"We are unmatched in our ability to integrate data and
switched service products. We have a state-of-the-art national
fiber-optic network, and ubiquitous international coverage,"
Ebbers said. "Reselling local services is a natural extension of
our focus on providing customers with advanced, effective and
affordable solutions."

One of the largest long distance telecommunications companies in
the United States, WorldCom, Inc. offers domestic and international
voice, data and video products and services to business customers,
other carriers and the residential market. The company operates a
nationwide digital fiber optic network in the United States and has
worldwide network capacity. The common shares of WorldCom, Inc. trade
on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol WCOM.