BellSouth BusinessSM Launches Professional Data Networking Services

Business Wire, March 24, 1999

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 1999--

Enterprise Network Consulting Arms Mid-Sized Businesses With

Top-Tier Data Networking Expertise

The BellSouth Business(SM) organization today announced Enterprise Network Consulting, a portfolio of services designed to provide a host of data network design, planning and analysis services to mid-sized and large businesses. This new offering provides professional network services tailored to meet individual business' hectic data network demands, and includes network design and planning, security consulting, performance assessment and tuning, and capacity planning.

This is the next step in BellSouth Business' strategy to build upon current data network and systems infrastructure and applications offerings, completing a full portfolio of enterprise network solutions. The professional services complement and add to BellSouth Business' arsenal of data networking, equipment and out-tasking solutions for businesses seeking to enhance operational performance and maximize the return on their network investments.

"Few mid-sized businesses, in particular, have the leverage to command the attention of the nation's top data networking engineers, yet nearly half of our customers have told us they need strategic data network planning resources," said Dick Anderson, group president of BellSouth Business. "BellSouth Business is a pioneer in fortifying this under-served mid-market with privileged access to world class consultants and powerful application solutions designed specifically for mid-sized companies' data networks."

A recent survey of BellSouth Business customers showed that 42 percent of mid- to large-sized companies indicate a demand for network consulting services. Twenty-seven percent of respondents report needing network monitoring services, and 21 percent say they need network management services. BellSouth Business is now in a position to serve any or all of these needs, as individual businesses require.

"As scarcity of skilled talent, rising costs of network personnel and high costs of training and retention strain businesses' network operations, the services market is offering viable alternatives," said Ellen Carney, director of network integration services for GartnerGroup/Dataquest.

These rising technology demands are becoming critical to businesses' abilities to meet customer needs. "With our exploding business growth and ever-advancing platform needs, we realize our technology is only as good as the network it runs on," noted Sheila Ray, executive vice president and COO of Tucker Federal Bank in Atlanta. "We believe BellSouth Business' network health check will help us to ultimately satisfy our customers with top-quality services by maximizing the mission-critical performance of our applications and improving our network as we continue to grow."

Enterprise Network Consulting

The BellSouth Business' Enterprise Network Consulting group brings the top-tier expertise typically found in Fortune 100 companies' network engineers not only to large companies, but also to thousands of mid-market businesses in the Southeast. Available the second quarter of 1999, the services encompass the entire enterprise network, including the local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) and applications. Enterprise network consulting has been tailored to mid-sized businesses with 15 service offerings that are divided into four service categories:

-- Performance Assessment Services - Baseline assessment of an

existing network for performance improvements including the WAN,

LAN, Internet Performance and application performance.

Includes: Network Health Check, Application Performance,

Frame Relay Performance, LAN Performance.

-- Security Consulting Services - Assessment and recommendations on

integrating security throughout the enterprise to protect network

resources and information assets from unwarranted use.

Includes: Security Awareness and Education, Security Policy

Development, Network Security Assessment, Security

Architecture Evaluation and Development, Security

Consolidation Planning, Security Migration Planning.

-- Capacity Planning - Sophisticated network modeling tools simulate

the network under various "what if" scenarios in order to

optimize network performance and build a capacity plan to

anticipate future network and Internet requirements six to twelve

months out.

Includes: Network Capacity Planning, Application Capacity

Planning.

-- Design and Planning Services - Assessment and recommendations on

the scope and specifications of a network's capabilities to meet

the business strategy, along with legacy migration and network

audit and inventory services.

Includes: Network Audit and Inventory, Network Design,

Network Strategy and Planning.

BellSouth Business

BellSouth Business, through BellSouth Business Systems (BBS), BellSouth Managed Network Solutions (MNS) and BellSouth Communication Systems (BCS), serves the needs of mid- to large-size businesses, institutions and organizations. By strategically aligning the network sales (BBS), equipment (BCS) and managed services (MNS) affiliates into one organization, BellSouth is uniquely positioned to serve the complex telecommunications and data communications needs of its customers.