Posted: 08/2000

News Briefs

* AT&T Corp. (www.att.com) will provide communications services to 7.5 million active duty, retired and reserve Army, Air Force and National Guard personnel and their families worldwide under a $700 million contract with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service. The contract, effective July 1, grants AT&T sole concession on Army and Air Force bases in the United States and overseas to market residential long distance and, where available, local service, operate public payphones and offer AT&T calling cards and prepaid calling cards. The contract also gives AT&T “first rights” to provide new services, including Internet access and broadband services.

* Digital Broadband Communications Inc. (www.digitalbroadband.com) will provide by summer’s end high-speed broadband capabilities to Maryland businesses, primarily in the Baltimore area. The expansion into Baltimore follows Digital Broadband’s rollout into upstate New York and an agreement with Rhode Island’s Cooperating Libraries Automated Network to deliver high-speed broadband capabilities to 48 of the state’s public libraries.

* CapRock Communications Corp. (www.caprock.com) has expanded its broadband telecommunications services into Oklahoma City; Lafayette, La.; and Tyler and McAllen, Texas, to provide bundled telecom products to businesses in those cities. By year’s end, the company plans to have a 7,500-mile fiber optic network that will connect nearly every primary, secondary and tertiary market throughout Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

* US LEC Corp. (www.uslec.com) has completed the installation of its Lucent 5ESS AnyMedia digital switch in Charleston, S.C., and has increased the total number of local switches in its network to 19. US LEC also has announced plans to enter Boston; Louisville, Ky.; New Orleans; New York City; Pittsburgh; and West Palm Beach, Fla.

* NewSouth Communications Corp. (www.newsouth.com) has turned up customers on its advanced data and voice gateway in Atlanta. The company is deploying these services via Cisco Systems Inc.‘s
(www.cisco.com) carrier-class ATM+IP New World System and Lucent Technologies Inc.‘s
(www.lucent.com) AnyMedia 5ESS-2000 switch.

* CTC Communications Group Inc. (www.ctcnet.com) has signed a five-year, $25 million agreement with Telcordia Technologies Inc.
(www.telcordia.com) to provide core components of Class 5 Local Dial Tone Services on CTC’s ATM+IP broadband integrated communications network. CTC expects to have customers using Class 5 local services on the network in the first quarter of 2001. CTC will utilize the Telcordia Call Agent software for its next- generation voice solutions. The software will provide call processing, real-time database servers and SS7 signaling.