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BellSouth Strengthens Metro Ethernet Portfolio to Deliver Additional Options for Businesses -- Premium Service Options Provide Efficient Data Networking, Include Robust Features Such as Tiered Speeds and Voice over IP Traffic Prioritization -- ATLANTA, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- BellSouth today announced significant enhancements to its industry-leading Ethernet transport services for business customers. The BellSouth(R) Metro Ethernet Service portfolio provides cost effective data networking options for businesses, a critical component of the comprehensive voice and data communications that companies depend on for efficient operation. In addition to traditional data networking, the enhanced platform for businesses offers new solutions for business continuity, data and storage center connectivity, sharing of medical and technical imaging, video and voice over IP (VoIP). The Metro Ethernet Service enhancements, known as Premium Service options, are initially available in Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Raleigh, with deployments to take place in additional metro areas throughout 2004. With BellSouth's Premium Service, customers have several available options including committed bandwidth speeds, bursting capabilities above the committed speeds, traffic prioritization and VLAN aggregation along with Service Level Agreements and Customer Network Management services. All of these features were designed with the demands of new applications in mind. BellSouth anticipated the need to support low latency applications such as voice over IP and has designed a robust service offering to complement the existing best effort and dedicated Metro Ethernet products. "BellSouth has offered innovative Metro Ethernet services for ten years and continues to deliver cost effective, high bandwidth transport services to customers using this technology," said Mark Kaish, BellSouth's vice president of Next Generation Services. "The Premium Service enhancements hit the sweet spot in a market where more businesses are migrating toward a converged voice and data environment and supporting more interactive applications and mission critical information across wide area networks. " Metro Ethernet is the telecommunications industry designation for Ethernet transport service that moves data traffic between two or more customer Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs). BellSouth began offering Metro Ethernet services (10, 100Mbps) in 1994 and added Gigabit Ethernet Service (1000Mbps) in 2001. The Premium Service announced today strengthens this portfolio with a broader suite of capabilities and allows customers to subscribe to additional incremental speeds of 20, 50, 250 and 500Mbps to supplement the existing speed options of 10, 100 and 1000Mbps. "Enterprises are increasingly turning to Ethernet as a platform for convergence," said David Parks of the Yankee Group. "With their Premium Service enhancements, metro fiber capillarity and complementing voice portfolio, BellSouth is in a great position to capture the growing demand for Ethernet services." About BellSouth Corporation BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and a parent company of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless voice and data provider. Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the market. Through BellSouth Answers(SM), residential and small business customers can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(sm) and The Real Yellow Pages(R). More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com/ . DATASOURCE: BellSouth Corporation CONTACT: Media, Todd Smith of BellSouth Media Relations, +1-404-829-8723, or Web site: http://www.bellsouth.com/

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