Local AT&T customers getting back online

PRESS RELEASE FROM AT&T:

AT&T Broadband Moves More Than Half Of Its Internet Customers To New High-Speed Network

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. - AT&T Broadband has now moved more than 500,000 cable Internet customers to its new high speed Internet network as of Tuesday morning, Dec. 4.

The company expects approximately 80 percent of its customers to be on the new network by the end of the day today. It plans to complete the full transition by Friday morning.

Over the last three days, AT&T has restored high-speed Internet service to more than half of the customers shut off by the At Home Corporation early Saturday morning. At Home Corporation's action followed a decision in U. S. Bankruptcy Court to cancel cable company distribution agreements with At Home.

The customers moved to the new AT&T network so far reside in Oregon, Washington, Texas, and San Francisco.

Customers in Illinois, Denver and Salt Lake City will be moved later today and tomorrow. Customers in Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Michigan and the Rocky Mountain region will be moved on Wednesday and Thursday. Customers in Hartford, Conn. will be moved on Friday.

Separately, yesterday, AT&T terminated its agreement with the At Home Corporation to purchase the company's assets, citing a number of significant breaches and other violations of the agreement by At Home.

AT&T Broadband has communicated with all of its high-speed cable Internet customers during the past few weeks to help them prepare for these developments.

The company will automatically issue credits to any customers who experience an interruption of service. Credits will be issued at the rate of two days free service for every day of interruption. In cases where the temporary outage is a bit longer, customers will receive free dial-up service from AT&T Broadband until they are restored to a high-speed network.

All affected customers will see these changes as part of their new service:

* Email domain names will automatically change from [username]@home.com to [username]@attbi.com. User names will stay the same;

* AT&T Broadband Internet will feature AT&T WorldNet High Speed service content;

* Upstream and downstream speeds will be managed to provide a faster and more consistent broadband service.

Customers formerly served by MediaOne are remaining on a separately operated network. The areas encompassing those customers include Ann Arbor, Mich.; Atlanta; Jacksonville; Los Angeles; the Stockton and Fresno areas of Central California; New England; Richmond, Va.; and St. Paul, Minn. A group of several thousand AT&T Broadband Excite@Home customers in Boston and Chamblee, Ga., - who had been acquired as part of recent cable system acquisitions - on Saturday were migrated to that separately operated network.

For the group of customers in the markets being served by this separately operated network, the service will be re-branded as AT&T Broadband Internet. For the majority of customers in these markets, the network, Internet service connectivity, email domain names, and data transmission speed won't be affected. The only change these customers will see is new content provided by Yahoo! To access this new content, customers can direct their browsers to http://home.attbroadband.com.

AT&T Broadband cable and local telephone service aren't being affected by these developments.