LDDS WorldCom supports launch of Juno, nation's first free Internet e-mail service

Business Wire, June 3, 1996

JACKSON, Miss.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 1996--LDDS WorldCom's specialized public data network is serving as a unique on-ramp to the Internet through Juno, the nation's first free Internet e-mail service.

Juno provides Internet e-mail at no charge to anyone in the U.S. who has access to a personal computer and a modem. Rather than charge its members, Juno derives its revenues by displaying interactive on-line advertising targeted to its members' needs and interests.

Juno received nearly 100,000 requests for its software before the formal product launch on April 22, and has received thousands more every day since then, as computer users around the country have learned about the service.

Juno has proved to be an ideal fit for LDDS WorldCom's suite of services from Atlanta-based GridNet International, a limited liability corporation majority-owned by LDDS WorldCom.

GridNet has deployed a switched access, value-added network using X.25, IP and other protocols at speeds up to 28.8 Kbps (V.34). Its services are used by transaction processors, on-line service providers, Internet access providers and corporate Intranets.

O.G. Greene, president and chief executive officer of GridNet, said Juno has the ideal application to take advantage of the company's private IP network services. Also, Greene noted, the broad geographic coverage and capacity of the "Grid" have allowed Juno to deploy its services nationwide very rapidly.

"GridNet is not burdened by legacy systems. We are efficiently employing the latest proven technologies," Greene said. "The genius is in the integration and packaging of the technologies in a way that no other carrier has done before."

In addition to Juno, GridNet's customers include corporate enterprise networks, other on-line service providers, transaction processors and Internet access providers that require high-speed X.25 or IP dial access.

The service utilized by Juno is an IP backbone accessible by an end-user's dialing either a local number or a toll-free number. Connection speed for dial access options is available up to and including 28.8 Kbps.

Calls routed to the LDDS WorldCom/GridNet point of presence are terminated in an adaptive access device which includes a digital modem/channel bank and either contains or is connected to a terminal server. The server sets up the IP session and receives authorization for access. Servers are connected to routers, which are connected to LDDS WorldCom's fully meshed and multi-homed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network for forwarding to Juno's hosts.

Just as Juno provides full-time customer service for its members, GridNet provides dedicated customer and technical support for Juno and its other customers on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis. Proactive measures are in place to assure peak network performance.

Juno's members--among them many first-time e-mail users--reap the benefits of this reliability. Members of Juno can use the service to exchange e-mail with anyone, anywhere in the world, who has an Internet e-mail address, including all members of the major commercial on-line services and Internet access providers. Juno's members pay no monthly or hourly fees, and their use of the service is not contingent on their purchasing any other services.

In addition to the basic e-mail functions--sending, receiving, forwarding, printing and replying to messages, for example--Juno offers a full-function address book, customizable mailing lists, folders for storing mail and a built-in spell-check feature.

Juno was organized and funded by D.E. Shaw & Co., a small (about 320 employees) but highly capitalized (with aggregate equity of approximately $700 million) investment banking group with offices in New York, Boston, London and Tokyo whose activities focus on various aspects of the intersection between technology and finance.

The firm was founded in 1988 by Dr. David E. Shaw, who was formerly a professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. He was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, in which capacity he serves as chairman of the Panel on Educational Technology. Over the past two years, D.E. Shaw & Co. has begun to invest in start-up and early-stage ventures within industries its management believes are likely to be fundamentally transformed by the use of computers.

One of the largest long-distance telecommunications companies in the United States, WorldCom Inc. offers domestic and international voice, data and video products and services to business customers, other carriers and the residential market. The company operates a nationwide digital fiber optic network and has worldwide network capacity. The common shares of WorldCom Inc. trade on The NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol WCOM.

CONTACT: LDDS WorldCom

Gil Broyles, 918/590-5752

g_broyles@wcom.com

or

Rourke & Company

Lisa Roth Blackman, 617/267-0042

lblackman@juno.com