AT&T Delivers Simplicity and Savings With Two New Plans - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Sept 6, 1999

AT&T Monday announced two new offers that will make communications simpler and more affordable for consumers: a long distance plan with a single low per-minute price good all day, every day, and a wireless program that gives families unlimited calling to each other.

"Life is hectic; communicating should be easy," said Gene Lockhart, president of AT&T consumer services. "With this kind of value, there's no need to watch the clock or dial around."

The new long distance offer, AT&T One Rate 7 Cents, lets consumers make interstate long distance calls from home anytime -- day or night -- for seven cents a minute with a monthly fee of $4.95 if the company also handles their residential local toll calls. If not, the monthly fee is $5.95.

The wireless offer, AT&T Family Plan, enables up to five family members to make unlimited wireless calls to each other and unlimited wireless calls to their landline phone at home when they call within their Family Calling Area and purchase one of several options for wireless calling.

"We want to extend the freedom of wireless calling to every family member," said Dan Hesse, president of AT&T Wireless Services. "No other wireless carrier offers this kind of value to today's families."

AT&T One Rate 7 Cents

AT&T said the freedom to call anytime at a low rate is a big draw for consumers. Its research shows one-third of all consumer long distance calling occurs between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. weekdays, when competing plans charge rates as high as 25 cents a minute.

The company pioneered simple pricing with the introduction of AT&T One Rate for residential landline calling, and AT&T Digital One Rate for wireless calling. More than 23 million AT&T consumer customers are currently subscribed to one of AT&T's One Rate plans.

The company said it was able to introduce this offer due to current and major anticipated reductions in access fees from the Federal Communications Commission -- the costs long distance companies pay to local telephone monopolies to complete a call. AT&T has always passed on savings from access reductions to consumers.

Consumers can enroll by calling 1-800-4-ONE RATE or accessing AT&T Online Customer Service at http://www.att.com.

AT&T Family Plan The Family Plan is designed to keep family members connected even when they're not together. Its unique feature is that family members can make unlimited wireless calls to each other and to their home telephone anytime, as long as they're within their Family Calling Area. This gives them the ability to stay in touch and coordinate their activities as they move around town.

Plan members can receive these benefits by selecting one of three wireless calling options:

* 60 minutes of non-family calling for $24.99 a month

* 400 minutes of non-family calling for $49.99 a month

* 600 minutes of non-family calling for $69.99 a month.

The minutes included in the packages are designed for calls to non-plan members and are in addition to the unlimited calling features of the Family Plan program.

The Family Calling Area is the geographic area where families typically live, work, commute and play on a regular basis. At least one member must choose either the $49.99 or the $69.99 plan and all members must have Digital multi-network phones.

As an added bonus, the family will also receive a seven-cent rate on domestic interstate long distance calls from their home phone with no additional monthly fee.

The plan makes it easy to stay in touch throughout the day with all the benefits of wireless communication, including safety, security and the ability to coordinate hectic schedules while on the go.

AT&T Family Plan is available now in most AT&T Wireless Services markets. It will be available in New York and newly acquired AT&T Wireless Services markets by the end of the year. Interested consumers can call 1-800-IMAGINE for more details.

AT&T (http://www.att.com) is the world's premier provider of voice and data communications, with more than 80 million customers, including businesses, government and consumers. AT&T runs the world's largest long-distance network and the largest wireless network in North America. The company is a leading supplier of data and Internet services for businesses and the nation's largest direct Internet service provider to consumers. AT&T also provides local telephone service to a growing number of businesses.