AT&T Secures New Five-Year Contract With OME-RESA

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio, June 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T Inc. today announced a new data services contract with the Ohio Mid-Eastern Regional Education Service Agency (OME-RESA) to expand its data network to allow broadband access to students in mideastern Ohio.

Under the terms of the five-year contract, AT&T will broaden its existing relationship with OME-RESA by delivering a Customized Switched Metro Ethernet (CSME) solution to support OME-RESA's high volume of voice, video, data and Internet services across the public-switched network. AT&T's CSME product will also provide expanded bandwidth to sustain advanced educational applications for OME-RESA, such as the electronic transfer of student records (mandated by the Ohio Department of Education) and videoconferencing across all 75 schools within OME-RESA's consortium.

This solution will provide cost-efficient, locally managed, fiber-based broadband Ethernet services at 10/100 and Gigabit speeds to four Appalachian counties in mideastern Ohio, a largely rural region where new fiber-based services were previously unavailable. The converged network will further enable application consolidation, allowing for quick and reliable voice, video and data transfer.

Furthermore, the CSME solution will include disaster-recovery services for increased security and redundancy of the network and will support high-volume access services for streamlined communications to help OME-RESA efficiently manage its voice and data network.

"We needed a provider to help us expand our broadband services to our mideastern residents while providing extra bandwidth to our educational facilities to support advanced learning applications," said Bill Rhinaman, site manager of OME-RESA. "With the new network in place, we're confident that the solution provided by AT&T will help us achieve our goals to deliver reliable, cost-effective services to our residents and students."

About OME-RESA

An information technology center (ITC) of the Ohio Education Computer Network (OECN) serving an 11-county area and 45 school districts in mideastern Ohio. Visit http://www.omeresa.net/ .

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with 55.8 million wireless customers. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and AT&T products and services is available at http://www.att.com/ .

Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand.

For more information and detailed disclaimer information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.sbc.com/newsroom .