MCI Uses DSL to Expand Availability of Hosted VOIP Solution

MCI Advantage via DSL Extends Company's Service to More Business Segments

ASHBURN, Va., May 10, 2004 - MCI (MCIA.PK) today announced the expanded availability of MCI Advantage, its award-winning, hosted Voice over IP (VoIP) solution, to more business segments via MCI's Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). Available in a variety of access speeds, MCI Advantage via DSL addresses the bandwidth demands of satellite and smaller offices, extending MCI's ability to provide businesses of all sizes with feature-rich, IP- based voice, data and video communications.

Available since 2001, MCI Advantage integrates voice and data services while meeting and exceeding the capabilities of traditional PBX services, including dialing plans, range privileges, and enhanced call routing with unlimited local and domestic long distance calling. With three years of experience providing a hosted voice over IP business service combined with its nationwide DSL and local coverage, MCI continues to set the pace for businesses wanting to simply and cost-effectively take advantage of the benefits of VoIP.

DSL access to MCI Advantage is immediately available via MCI's facilities-based DSL service, which covers markets serving many of the top US metropolitan service areas (MSAs) including Los Angeles, CA, Boston, MA and Chicago, IL. Later this year, MCI will more than double its Advantage DSL coverage to reach more than four million businesses via an existing agreement with Covad.

"With new cost-effective broadband access to MCI Advantage, companies of all sizes will be able to migrate to converged networking services more simply," said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president of MCI Product Development. "MCI's unmatched collection of local, DSL, data and Internet assets enables the Company to offer small/medium businesses in markets such as New York, San Francisco and Washington DC, the ability to evolve their communications solutions and reduce their overall costs."

To ensure business quality VoIP, MCI has developed the ability to manage both inbound and outbound voice prioritization and data packet fragmentation for DSL. In addition, the flat-rate pricing structure of MCI Advantage delivers the simplicity companies associate with an IP-based communications solution combined with the ease of use and flexibility of multimedia communications.

Additional Enhancements to MCI Advantage

Working with industry-leading vendors, MCI has led the development and delivery of IP-based communications for enterprise customers. In January 2004, MCI introduced a customized, premise-based solution for its MCI Advantage customers, combining a router, firewall and Quality of Service (QoS) management into a single box. Consolidating the premise equipment into one box means MCI can reduce customer equipment costs and improve performance to-and-from the premise.

In February 2004, the company announced the availability of Advantage via Private IP, MCI's fastest growing VPN service. MCI's Private IP delivers an ideal VPN environment for high-bandwidth, high-priority applications while enabling customers to achieve greater functionality and a better return on investment from their current network operations and streamlined network management. The inherent security and traffic management capabilities of MPLS along with Quality of Service (QoS) is ideal for carrying time-sensitive voice applications because voice packets receive higher priority than data packets when traveling over a single network.

Through its recently announced relationship with BroadSoft, MCI Advantage customers will soon benefit from new business-empowering capabilities, such as Outlook integration, call screening, click-to-talk capabilities, simultaneous ring, auto attendant and Web-based receptionist services. MCI Advantage customers also will be able to leverage a remote offices service which provides "road warriors" and teleworkers with the same network access and functionality on-the-go that are standard in a typical office setting. This remote office feature will allow customers to distinguish personal calls from business calls and eliminate the need for employees to log and submit business expenses for reimbursement. MCI completed trials of the BroadSoft solution last month and will offer a commercial solution to customers in June 2004.

Overall, these applications will change the way customers do business, by helping drive increased employee productivity, simplifying the way telecommunications are bought and managed, scaling easily as a company grows and positioning customers for future services using Session Initiation Protocol, an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards-based protocol

About MCI
MCI, Inc. (MCIA.PK) is a leading global communications provider, delivering innovative, cost-effective advanced communications connectivity to businesses, governments and consumers. With the industry's most expansive global IP backbone, based on the number of company-owned points-of-presence, and wholly-owned data networks, MCI develops the converged communications products and services that are the foundation for commerce and communications in today's markets. For more information, go to www.mci.com.