Contracts

British Telecommunications PLC
8 September 2000



Esat Announces £1.5 million contracts for Esat-X

State-of-the-art hosting and data facility
targeting burgeoning US market

Esat  announced today that it has secured contracts worth
£1.5  million  from  customers  including  qpass.com  and
Ryanair.com  since  it  launched  Esat-X,  its   Internet
Exchange  Centre  (IXC), in May.   Esat  expects  further
significant  contracts from US-based dot com  and  multi-
national companies, with a predicted boost to revenue  of
£4  million  over the next 12 months.  Esat is  investing
£20 million in the development of the City West facility.

The  announcement was made as Ignite, BT's  international
broadband, data and applications company, confirmed  that
it  is working with its ventures to establish web-hosting
centres across Europe.

Speaking  at  the  announcement  in  Dublin,  Mr   Alfred
Mockett,  BT  Ignite's CEO said, 'The  establishment  and
success  of  Esat-X is a testament to the entrepreneurial
spirit  of  Esat.  The facility is a key strategic  asset
for  Esat and BT Ignite, and for Ireland in its ambitions
to become a major European e-commerce hub.'

Housed at a 40,000 square foot purpose-built facility  at
City  West  in  Dublin, Esat-X is a managed  hosting  and
internet connectivity centre for content providers, ISPs,
ASPs  and  e-commerce businesses with  a  focus  on  high
performance, highly available internet connectivity.  The
IXC  acts as a hub by allowing businesses to service  the
Web  Hosting  and  Application Service Provision  markets
throughout  Europe  without actually  having  a  presence
there.

Esat-X  is  the  first  facility  of  its  kind   to   be
established  in  Ireland to offer these services  to  US-
based dot com companies and multi-national companies. The
facility  allows  US multi-nationals to qualify  for  the
Irish  Government's 12 per cent tax incentive offered  to
foreign companies who locate their transaction servers in
Ireland.

Mr   Richard  Cooke,  Chief  Executive  Officer,   Esat's
Corporate and Broadband Division, said, 'We are delighted
with  the  success of Esat-X since it was  launched  four
months ago.  Our ability to attract business to Esat-X is
based   on   the   excellence  of  the   facilities   and
infrastructure for high-end internet businesses.  We  are
continuing  to  target  the  US  market  and  envisage  a
significant  return from this activity over the  next  12
months.'

Esat-X  offers a range of services including space  in  a
secure and facilities-managed building together with  24-
hour  network management monitoring as well  as  disaster
recovery  back-up  services.  In addition,  the  facility
provides customers with remote rebooting of servers,  ASP
and consultancy services.


                            
Ignite  was  established to service  corporate  customers
globally  with  a complete communications portfolio  from
bit  transport through bandwidth to leading edge  content
technologies  and custom solutions.  A key  part  of  the
company's   strategy  is  focused  on  web  hosting   and
application service provision.  Ignite's objective is  to
become  one  of the top five providers of global  content
hosting delivery services.