Wholesale Services Market

Bellsouth Corp
19 February 2001




MEDIA CONTACT:

David Sutton, BellSouth                       Matt Fogt, GCI Group
404/285-3241 (cell)                           678/592-5807 (cell)
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                              BellSouth Commits to
                      Wholesale Services Market Initiative

-Three-Pronged Effort Will Focus Resources at Enhancing Service, High-
Speed Product Offerings, Pricing Options for Access Services Clients-

Orlando, FL, CompTel 2001, February 19, 2001 -- BellSouth today announced a
three-pronged initiative for its wholesale services market that will benefit
access services customers by enhancing provisioning of service levels, as well
as, adding new product and pricing options.

'BellSouth is committed to serving customers with quality products and services,
superior customer support and competitive prices,' said Bill Smith, chief
technology officer and president of BellSouth Interconnection Services.
'BellSouth is focusing capital and human resources on its wholesale services
market initiatives in 2001, and today's announcement details how access services
customers will benefit from our commitment.'

Specifically, BellSouth's three-pronged initiative will:

- Enhance service levels to shorten customers' cycle time for provisioning and
maintenance. BellSouth will provide installation predictability, pre-deployment
of facilities based on customer forecasts, and a service infrastructure. For
instance, ICS has established a five- and eight-day standard interval for DS-1s
in its Southeast region. Using Web-enabled tools, access customers can see the
installation intervals that would apply to their specific business requirements
and order accordingly.

- Bring new and enhanced products to market to offer customers end-to-end,
one-stop shop solutions. This includes a recent rollout of OC-192 connectivity
for point-to-point and ring services that adds a new high-bandwidth alternative.
Plans for the future include the introduction of both 10mb and 100mb LAN
interconnection to the SONET product family.

- Introduce new pricing plans that offer customers flexible volume and term
  arrangements. New pricing plans will include volume and term commitments
  packaged with service level agreements along with other benefits such as
  customized reports, training and network design.

'This initiative from BellSouth is an insightful combination of product, pricing
options and service, all designed to meet customer demands,' said Dave Patton,
senior analyst, TeleChoice. 'Access customers expect bandwidth to be available
when they need it. BellSouth's collaborative customer work is anticipating this
demand.'

'At BellSouth, we understand our wholesale customers' requirements to supply the
high-speed products and services that their customers are demanding,' says John
Irwin, vice president of marketing for Interconnection Services. 'A key
component of the enhancements we are adding to our access service product
portfolio is the pre-deployment of network infrastructure. Pre-deployment of
facilities will allow BellSouth to efficiently meet customer demand.'

BellSouth Interconnection Services (www.interconnection.bellsouth.com) is
the wholesale business unit of BellSouth, providing intelligent wholesale
solutions for five core product families: transport, switching, intelligent
network services, professional services and packet data. BellSouth
Interconnection Services customer segments include Interexchange Carriers IXCs),
Wireless Service Providers, Integrated Communication Providers (ICPs),
Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs), Resellers, Independent Telephone
Companies (IC0s) and Payphone Service Providers (PSPs). Created in 1997 as a
separate business unit dedicated to the wholesale market, BellSouth
Interconnection Services serves a diverse group of nearly 5,000 customers and
has 400 sales and marketing professionals and nearly 3,600 operations center
experts.

About BellSouth Corporation

BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications services company
headquartered in Atlanta, GA, serving more than 44 million customers in the
United States and 16 other countries.

Consistently recognized for customer satisfaction, BellSouth provides a full
array of broadband data and e-commerce solutions to business customers,
including Web hosting and other Internet services. In the residential market,
BellSouth offers DSL high-speed Internet access, advanced voice features and
other services. BellSouth also provides online and directory advertising
services, including BellSouth(R) Real Pages(SM).com.

BellSouth owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest
wireless company, which provides innovative wireless data and voice services.