AT&T's Ethernet Portfolio Is Certified By Metro Ethernet Forum's Test Lab

SAN ANTONIO, June 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) today has announced that the entire suite of Ethernet services has been certified by the Metro Ethernet Forum's (MEF) test lab and has passed the industry association's most stringent MEF-14 evaluation for performance. The MEF presented AT&T with MEF-14 certificates at the NXTcomm trade show in Chicago.

With today's announcement, AT&T's Ethernet suite of services is among the few carrier Ethernet portfolios to receive the MEF-14 certification for performance. This is the second consecutive year that AT&T's Ethernet services have been certified as compliant with the MEF standards.

AT&T's 22-state Ethernet footprint is one of the largest in the U.S. The combination of the Ethernet service area and MEF-14 certifications enables AT&T to offer the industry's most comprehensive and versatile suite of Ethernet services.

"We already have the largest Ethernet footprint in North America, and having achieved the rigorous MEF-14 certification is validation of our proven commitment to meet and exceed MEF standards, allowing our customers to benefit from standardized, well-defined, carrier-class services," said Sanford Brown, vice president, AT&T Connectivity and Metro Network Services.

"The MEF seal of approval is a clear and positive boost in ensuring quality of service, scalability and reliability as we continue to support our customer's mission-critical and converged applications across multiple verticals," added Brown.

The MEF is a global industry alliance, which includes more than 120 carriers, equipment vendors, testing organizations and end-users, whose mission is to accelerate worldwide adoption of carrier-class Ethernet networks and services. The MEF's test lab, Iometrix, conducted the MEF-14 certification process.

The stringent MEF-14 evaluation includes a set of 170 tests that go beyond simply assessing functionality. The extended testing includes an analysis of service performance for frame delay, frame delay variation and frame loss ratio, as well as bandwidth profile service attributes. AT&T received certification of its Ethernet Private Line, Virtual Private Line, and Private Line for Wide Area Network family of services.

The market for carrier Ethernet services is enjoying considerable growth. According to the industry research firm IDC, revenue for carrier Ethernet services grew by more than 33 percent in 2006 and reached $3.04 billion.(1)

"Ethernet is in its fourth decade of existence and the adoption curve for Carrier Ethernet is speeding up," said Mark Whalley, co-chair MEF Marketing Committee. "MEF-14 certification complements MEF 9 certification and is a major step toward making Ethernet truly carrier-class. For a service provider end-customer, MEF-14 certification means confidence that the equipment in the network is capable of providing tightly specified service level agreement behavior in terms of assured bandwidth and application responsiveness."

AT&T is a leading provider of Metropolitan Area Network optical solutions for business customers. AT&T Ethernet solutions can be configured in a variety of ways, including point to point, point to multipoint and multipoint to multipoint. These solutions also provide expanded service levels, which give businesses a wider selection in the type of service level that they want, with the ability to support bandwidths ranging from 5 Mbps up to 10 Gbps.

More information on AT&T's Ethernet services can be found on http://www.business.att.com/access_and_local.

Note: This AT&T release and other news announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at http://www.att.com/rss.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. is a premier communications holding company in the United States and around the world, with operating subsidiaries providing services under the AT&T brand. AT&T is the recognized world leader in providing IP-based communications services to business and the U.S. leader in providing wireless, high speed Internet access, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. As part of its "three screen" integration strategy, AT&T is expanding video entertainment offerings to include such next-generation television services as AT&T U-verseSM TV. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com/.

(C) 2007 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. AT&T is a registered trademark of AT&T Knowledge Ventures. Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand. For more information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.att.com/newsroom.

About The Metro Ethernet Forum:

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) is a global industry alliance comprising of 80+ members including telecommunications service providers, network equipment/software manufacturers, semiconductors vendors and testing organizations. The MEF's mission is to accelerate the worldwide adoption of Carrier-class Ethernet networks and services. The MEF develops Carrier Ethernet technical specifications and implementation agreements to promote interoperability and deployment of Carrier Ethernet worldwide. For more information about the Forum, including a complete listing of all current MEF members, please visit the MEF web site at http://www.metroethernetforum.org/

1. Worldwide Carrier Ethernet 2006-2010 Forecast, IDC #205209 , January,

2007