GTS Now Offers Carriers 'Full Wavelength' Services. First Customer UCS Orders Optical Services Connecting Six European Cities - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, August 9, 1999

Global TeleSystems Group, Inc. (GTS) (Nasdaq: GTSG; Frankfurt: GTS; Easdaq: GTSG), a leading provider of telecommunications services to businesses and carriers across Europe, Monday announced the introduction of a new managed bandwidth service: "Optical Sub-Network" (OSN), which features lit wavelength capacity in 2.5 Gbps increments.

Unisource Carrier Services AG (UCS) is GTS's first OSN customer. UCS recently ordered a "sub-network" linking London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. UCS plans to take advantage of GTS's OSN service in the 50 cities and 20 countries that the GTS network is expected to reach during the year 2000.

"We are extremely pleased to have UCS on board as our first OSN customer," said Gerard Caccappolo, president of GTS Carrier Services. "With OSN, GTS strengthens its leadership position in the carrier's carrier market by offering full network solutions with bandwidth ranging from 2 Mbps to 2.5 Gbps and more. Our strategy is to continue to expand capacity on our existing fiber with DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) technology. In this way, we can offer customers like UCS a fast start and excellent pricing. We can also provide them with higher bandwidth when they need it, including links to the 23 European cities our network currently covers."

"This high-bandwidth network is an important strategic step," said Neil Rafferty, CEO of UCS. "It reinforces our position as one of Europe's leading carriers, and anticipates even stronger demand from our customers in the future. In addition, the short time-to-market of a DWDM solution gives us major timing and cost advantages."

OSN will allow UCS to create layers of transport for IP, SDH, ATM or voice services. GTS's OSN service is provided on GTS's trans-European network -- the most extensive cross-border fiber optic network in Europe. The GTS trans- European network offers redundant routing between cities, helping to ensure resilient operation. GTS was the first network provider in Europe to use DWDM technology. Using DWDM, GTS is currently increasing the capacity of a single fiber pair by 40 times, from 2.5 Gbps to 100 Gbps, effectively creating 40 new channels on one fiber pair.

Global TeleSystems Group is a leading independent owner and operator of telecommunications companies throughout Europe. GTS serves customers in 20 European countries and operates a broadband network with points of presence in 23 cities in Europe. GTS recently acquired Esprit Telecom, Omnicom and NetSource, which provide business customers with a wide range of voice, data, IP, Internet and other telecommunications services. The company is developing competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) in Paris, Geneva and Berlin and has plans to develop at least 12 CLEC operations in Western Europe by year-end 2001. GTS also provides managed bandwidth and switched services in Europe to other telecommunications and Internet service providers and has announced a planned transatlantic joint venture. In addition, the company offers a variety of fixed-line and mobile telecommunications services in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Headquartered in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, GTS's affiliates have offices in London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow, Budapest, Kiev and Prague. FMI: www.gtsgroup.net.

Unisource Carrier Services AG, based in Zurich, is a subsidiary of the pan-European telecommunications company, Unisource NV. UCS provides an innovative and cost-competitive portfolio of international telecommunications services and carrier solutions to all segments of the European wholesale market.

UCS operates one of the largest and fastest commercial ATM networks available to European carriers, with 13 Points of Presence (PoPs) in Europe and North America. FMI: www.unisource-ucs.com.