MCI Rolls Out Business VoIP in Europe

MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access Offers Customers an Easy Migratory Step Towards a Fully Converged Voice and Data Solution

READING, England, June 13 (PRNewswire)

MCI, Inc. (Nasdaq: MCIP) today announced that it has begun its Europeanroll-out of MCI Advantage, a portfolio of IP-based services designed forcompanies wanting to converge their voice and data networks. MCI Advantage,which includes networked voice over IP and Hosted IP telephony, will beintroduced throughout the next year. The initial offering, MCI Advantage IPIntegrated Access, is now available in the UK and will soon be available inFrance, Germany and the Netherlands.

With MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access, customers can capitalise on thecost efficiency of IP telephony -- on-net calls are free and integrationprovides access cost savings -- whilst using their existing PABX. Otherenhancements, including DSL access, hosted and managed IP-PBX solutions, willfollow later in 2005.

"MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access allows customers to evolve to aconverged networking solution whilst reducing expenses," said RobertaMackintosh, Senior Director of Product Management, Pricing and Analysis forMCI in Europe. "With MCI Advantage we are able to provide a portfolio ofservices that meet the evolving voice and data needs of our customers."

MCI Advantage combines voice, multimedia and data across a single IP linkallowing customers to converge their telephony, data exchange and messagingapplications on a seamless network infrastructure. The company has enabledits voice and Internet products for convergence through implementingintelligent network-hosted Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) capabilities androuting servers. (SIP is a standards-based protocol for establishing andterminating media sessions, e.g. for e-mail, streamed video and instantmessaging, that are controlled independently from the underlying network.)

"Gartner is finding that VoIP is continuing to gain momentum because thetechnology has moved on sufficiently to make it an affordable proposition fora business, with an easy to calculate return on investment," said NeilRickard, Research Vice President, Gartner.

"The key elements needed to serve the enterprise market's initialrequirements for supporting voice applications in a converged environment,are site-to-site Voice over IP (VoIP), site-to-public (VoIP) and hostedand/or managed IP telephony," said Rickard. "Later requirements will includehosted/managed contact centers and unified communications. The first wave ofapplications is being deployed on the basis of obvious cost savings, plus anincrease in agility and flexibility."

About MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access

MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access is a convergence solution deliveredvia the company's Private IP service using Multi-Protocol Label Switching(MPLS) or over an MCI Dedicated Internet Access circuit. MCI Advantage IPIntegrated Access has three feature packages -- a base feature package,network voicemail and voice VPN. The service is designed to allow customersan evolutionary step towards a complete converged solution. It offers a fullymanaged service that avoids customer capital expenditure because it isimplemented directly in the access and IP network. The traditional customerPBX is kept in place, with MCI simply adding voice to the existing IPDedicated or PIP access network without the requirement for PBX changes orLAN upgrades or end-user re-training.

Convergence

Convergence can increase the cost competitiveness of customers in Europeby removing the inefficiencies generated by maintaining multiple networks. IPIntegrated Access offers call savings through intra-company calls beingmigrated from the public switched telephone network to the IP network,enabling free on-net voice calls. Another savings feature is the MCIAdvantage Club, where many calls over IP to other MCI Advantage customers arealso free.

In addition, MCI Advantage IP Integrated Access uses compression toenable more efficient bandwidth requirements, allowing customers to use anMCI IP access circuit for all calls. Instead of the 64kbps typically requiredfor a traditional voice call, MCI Advantage can compress voice traffic to28kbps per call, reducing recurring bandwidth costs whilst maintainingbusiness-grade voice quality. Moving voice traffic onto an IP network alsogives employees new ways of communicating by enhancing functionality andin-turn increasing corporate dexterity. MCI Advantage is a winner of numerousawards in the US, including most recently Network Magazine's 2005 'InnovationAward for Most Influential Technology' in data services, and has been offeredin the US for more than three years. It has been further developed andtrialed for the European market by fully integrating it with localoperational systems supporting specific country requirements.

About MCI, Inc.

MCI, Inc. (Nasdaq: MCIP) is a leading global communications provider,delivering innovative, cost-effective, advanced communications connectivityto businesses, governments and consumers. With one of the most expansiveglobal IP backbones and wholly-owned data networks, MCI develops theconverged communications products and services that are the foundation forcommerce and communications in today's market. For more information, go tohttp://www.mci.com.

Web site: http://www.mci.com

Source: MCI, Inc.

Aislinn Ryan of MCI Europe Communications, +44-0-118-905-7114, aislinn.ryan@uk.mci.com

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