Wiltel, NTC Announce Billion Dollar Contract

JACKSON, Miss. (June 17, 1996) --

WilTel, the wholesale services business unit of WorldCom, Inc., and
National Telephone & Communications, Inc., one of the fastest
growing long distance resellers, today announced that they have
signed a multi-year contract valued at $1 billion. With the NTC
agreement, WilTel has signed the reseller industry's three
largest contracts in the past year that total more than $2.4
billion.

The contract takes effect immediately and supersedes the $600
million contract signed by NTC last fall. That contract was
renegotiated after it became apparent that NTC's growth
substantially exceeded projections in the first contract.

"It's always exciting to renegotiate a contract because
our customer's growth surpassed their expectations," said
Roy Wilkens, president and chief executive officer of WilTel Network
Services. "But this is particularly exciting because it comes on
the heels of other record contracts we've signed. It illustrates
our company's diversity to meet the needs of our customers and
the tremendous growth within the industry."

Wilkens noted the reseller industry has seen exponential growth in
the past decade and that has been accelerated since the passage of
the Telecommunications Act of 1996 earlier this year.

Ed Jacobs, NTC president and chief executive officer, said the
billion-dollar contract with WilTel echoes consumers' call for
quality services at lower prices. The contract with WilTel enables
NTC to provide its customers with the highest quality at a
competitive cost.

The contract with NTC calls for the reseller to utilize
WilTel's enhanced WilMax product, which will officially be
introduced to the market in early July. The postalized rate product
averages the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) charges across the country
and the long distance service charges. NTC has one price level
applicable to each service type to establish its own rate structure.
WilTel unveiled WilMax in 1994 and has continued to update the
product.

Conversion to the enhanced WilMax product allows for more
innovative pricing structures. Bob Brejcha, WilTel regional vice
president who negotiated the contract, said the enhanced WilMax
product was attractive to NTC and helped to seal the deal.

"NTC has been a WilTel customer for some time and the
personnel are familiar with our high-quality network. What they
needed was a product suite to help the company be more competitive in
the market. The enhanced WilMax product met NTC's needs,"
Brejcha said.

At the same time, WilTel offers Transcend, a product that
unbundles the cost components of a long distance call and features
proprietary computer software that provides full audit capability as
well as the ability to analyze regional customer calling patterns. It
was that service that helped ink a $900 million deal with Excel
Communications, Inc. earlier this month, said Charlie Cole, WilTel
vice president of carrier sales.

A year ago, UniDial Inc. and WilTel signed what was then the
largest reseller agreement in the industry valued at $480 million.
The Kentucky-based reseller wanted the postalized rate product WilMax
as well as the capability to offer frame relay data services to its
growing customer base.

"What you have are the three largest reseller contracts and
each had different needs. One customer needed a postalized rate
structure while the other needed subscriber data management while
still another needed the data services to pursue larger national
accounts. What the three contracts had in common was the need to meet
the projected growth of the companies," said Cole. "WilTel
is the only wholesale service provider that has products to meet each
of the needs and the capability to meet the growth
expectations."

Ron Harden, WilTel manager of marketing products and services,
said the company continues to roll out new products to enable
reseller customers to compete with even the largest long distance
providers in a rapidly expanding marketplace.

"We have always known the reseller market holds tremendous
potential and we are committed to serving those companies better than
anyone else in the marketplace. Now, we are uniquely positioned to
capitalize on the growth that is exceeding even the analysts'
expectations," he said. "We've done that by offering
new products to the resellers to help them compete."

In addition to Transcend and enhanced WilMax products, the company
has unveiled a frame relay data service offering and a World Wide Web
page product offering for the carrier market. The Internet product
allows resellers to establish their own home page complete with
product and service information. The service, unveiled earlier this
month, is free to WilTel carrier customers.

WilTel is the wholesale services business unit of WorldCom, Inc.
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.