Network Plus Announces Addition of Mr. Lawrence Strickling, Former FCC Bureau Chief, To Its Board of Directors

Business Wire, March 7, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

QUINCY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2001

Network Plus, Inc. (NASDAQ:NPLS), one of the leading voice and data communications providers on the East Coast, today announced that it has added Lawrence E. Strickling, former Chief of the Common Carrier Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to its Board of Directors. Strickling, currently Executive Vice President and General Counsel of CoreExpress, a privately held telecommunications company in St. Louis, served as Bureau Chief from 1998-2000.

During Strickling's tenure as Bureau Chief at the FCC, the Commission approved the first applications to allow Bell companies into the long distance arena. He also spearheaded the Commission's actions to promulgate unbundling and collocation rules to facilitate local competition and to reform federal access charges and the universal service program. In addition, the Common Carrier Bureau, under his leadership, developed new rules to combat illegal long distance carrier switching (slamming) and crafted a 60-day carrier complaint resolution process known as the "rocket docket". Prior to joining the FCC in 1997, Strickling was Vice President - Public Policy at Ameritech, one of the regional Bell holding companies. Mr. Strickling holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Maryland as well as a law degree from Harvard Law School.

Strickling joins David Martin, former Executive Vice President of Texas Instruments, and Joseph McNay, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Essex Investment Management Company LLC, among others as Directors on Network Plus' board. Network Plus offers competitive local, long distance, and high-bandwidth Internet services to businesses chiefly in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the United States.

About Network Plus

Network Plus is a network-based integrated communications provider headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts. Network Plus offers broadband data and telecommunications services, primarily to small and medium-sized business customers located in major markets in the Northeastern and Southeastern regions of the United States. The Company's bundled product offerings include local and long distance service as well as enhanced, high-speed data and Internet services.

For more information on Network Plus Corp., please visit the Company's website at www.networkplus.com.

Safe Harbor Provision

This press release includes certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. For this purpose, any statement that is not a statement of historical fact, including without limitation the projected revenues from the agreement with a leading international broadband provider, any statement using the terms "believes," "anticipates," and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are termination of any long tem data contract for any reason, intense competition in our industry, our dependence on suppliers and other service providers, our failure to successfully manage our anticipated expansion and the other factors set forth in our most recent report on form 10-Q and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Network Plus undertakes no obligation to update the information contained on our web site or in this release, to review or confirm analysts' expectations or estimates or to release publicly any revisions to a forward looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Network Plus does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.