October 11, 1995

NYNEX CONTACT: Media Relations, (212) 395-0500

NYNEX Enters Strategic Alliance with IBM to Develop Value-Added Networking Services for Businesses

-- Announces Impower Vision --

NEW YORK, NY -- NYNEX today announced plans to develop with IBM an integrated and transparent network computing platform to provide a full set of value-added services targeted at the business market. The alliance and services are part of Impower, NYNEXs strategic vision for business.

As part of the Impower concept, NYNEX also announced plans to deploy a new information infrastructure called the NYNEX Business Network Architecture, which will be based on ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) technology, and carry voice, data, image and video to the desktop.

In addition, the Impower vision included three other related announcements:

· An alliance with Newbridge Networks to enhance the business services that NYNEX offers its customers;

· an agreement with Bell Atlantic to introduce the NYNEX/Bell Atlantic Frame Relay Corridor Service, which will provide high-speed data links between businesses in New York City and northern New Jersey; and

· an agreement with Pacific Bell to work toward development of frame relay, ATM cell relay, video conferencing and multimedia messaging services in their respective service areas. (See related press releases.)

The powerful combination of NYNEX and IBM will deliver tools of impowerment to knowledge workers by providing access to applications on-demand over the network, said Richard Jalkut, president and group executive, NYNEX Telecommunications. Through this unique alliance, IBM will help integrate a standards-based computing capability into our infrastructure, adding further value to NYNEXs core capabilities in transport and access.

As part of the announcement, NYNEX demonstrated and provided a blueprint of products and services targeted for customer trials by the second half of 1996. Included were demonstrations of local and wide-area network management, secure Internet access, and various forms of electronic messaging.

As part of the alliance, IBM will deploy an integrated and transparent network computing platform that may be accessed throughout the NYNEX network and play a significant role in the delivery and customer service aspects of the planned services, said Ward MacKenzie, vice president, NYNEX Business Network Solutions.

The NYNEX Impower concept includes six planned product lines:

· Internetwork Management -- addresses LAN administration and customer service management.

· Collaborative Services -- includes groupware, multimedia conferencing and five types of integrated messaging.

· Internet Tool Kit - - enables intelligent, high-speed access to the World Wide Web.

· Applications Solutions -- provides standard and custom industry specific applications.

· Virtual Access -- supports the remote access market.

· Business Integration Services -- includes systems integration, network integration, network management and consulting services.

The announcements were made at press and customer briefings held at NYNEX facilities in New York and Boston and on the show floor of the Telecom 95 trade show in Geneva, Switzerland, that were carried live using the NYNEX network.

The availability of these value-added services is enhanced by the ubiquitous deployment of the NYNEX Business Network Architecture, said MacKenzie. The Business Network Architecture is a powerful information infrastructure that combines the capacity and speed of an advanced, interactive communications platform with the addition of computer-based intelligence throughout the network.

NYNEX must aggressively enter new markets through information technology alliances that provide abilities in computing hardware and software that our customers are asking for. These relationships enable us to speed new services to market, respond to differing market conditions, lower costs and easily add divergent capabilities to our own set of core competencies, he said.

MacKenzie said that NYNEX intends to provide the underlying core network components of the Business Network Architecture, including extensive deployment of ATM switching technology over the next five years.

ATM is the emerging standard in cell relay technology that integrates local and wide-area networks and enables voice, image, video and data over a single network facility. It is fully compatible with currently deployed twisted pair, coaxial and fiber optic facilities, said MacKenzie.

IBM is committed to supporting multi-vendor, multi-protocol environments, said Sam Palmisano, president and chief executive officer of Integrated Systems Solutions Corporation, IBMs services subsidiary. Our goal is to provide an open, standards-based application computing platform with best-of-class partners to assure that customers are not concerned about which technologies are being used, but focus only on the value-added service itself.

The IBM/NYNEX alliance creates a powerful union of core competencies that are strategically important to both companies, said Steve Mucchetti, general manager, Telecommunications and Media Industry Solution Unit, IBM. What makes this opportunity noteworthy is the capabilities that will be derived from the integration of NYNEXs access and transport with IBMs unique computing applications. More important, it provides the business customer with the ever-increasing value-added services they need to compete in the emerging global digital networked economy.

The Impower demonstration network was developed in conjunction with 28 key NYNEX technology partners. Some of the partners in attendance at todays announcement included Sun Microsystems, Newbridge Networks, DSC Communications, and Oracle Software.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.

FAX copies of recent NYNEX news releases are available free of charge, 24 hours a day. Call 1-800-331-1214 and an automated system will provide instructions.

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