vBNS Turns Up Ultra High-Speed West Coast Connection for Research and Academic Community

MCI WorldCom Network Expands Capacity in support of NGI and Internet2 Initiatives

RESTON, Va., February 18, 1999: MCI WorldCom today announced that it has enhanced capacity for research and academic users of its NSF-sponsored vBNS (Very High Performance Backbone Network Service) with the installation of an OC-48 link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. vBNS is a leading network support service for NGI (Next Generation Internet) and Internet2. Members of the CalREN-2 university research and education network, including California Institute of Technology, California State University, Stanford University, University of California, and University of Southern California, will be among the first to explore applications using the highest IP transmission speeds available today for accelerated, end-to-end high performance applications.

Launched in April 1995, the vBNS is the product of a five-year cooperative agreement between MCI WorldCom and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide a high bandwidth network for research applications. vBNS has built its reputation across Internet, research and academic communities on the features and performance of its network. With four years of experience, led by award-winning engineers, vBNS continues to set the pace for next generation Internetworking.

Under its agreement with NSF, MCI WorldCom is pushing the edges of IP performance and functionality in support of the more than 81 education and research organizations and four supercomputer centers, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, that currently rely on vBNS to meet their research needs, including transmission of massive amounts of data at extremely high rates.

"This is an important milestone in support of next generation Internetworking," said Vint Cerf, MCI WorldCom senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology. "vBNS supports the exploration of advanced applications by the research and education community, some of which may one day become commonplace on the public Internet. This upgrade allows experimentation with applications involving multicast, IP version 6, and Quality of Service classes at the high speeds supportable with 2.5 gigabit/second OC-48 trunking."

MCI WorldCom has deployed Juniper Networks M40 routers to power the OC-48 trunks and to allow use of next generation MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) technology in place of its current ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) layer 2 architecture. The M40 Internet backbone router operates at wire rate performance at OC-48 speeds, ensuring that vBNS can scale to meet the unusual demands of the R&E community. MCI WorldCom plans to continue to migrate backbone segments of vBNS throughout 1999 to create a pure IP over SONET infrastructure.

"We are very pleased to see this increased capacity in the vBNS backbone," said David Wasley, Project Director for the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). "Members of our CalREN-2 network will now be able to fully utilize their high speed connections to the vBNS. The new high performance applications we are developing will demonstrate the importance of this capability as part of the Internet2 work in which we are engaged."

MCI WorldCom is publicly displaying the capabilities of the new vBNS network capability with continuous network tests and results at http://www.vbns.net/OC48/oc48 map.htm

About MCI WorldCom

MCI WorldCom is a global communications company with revenue of more than $30 billion and established operations in over 65 countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet services. MCI WorldCom's global networks, including its state-of-the-art pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end high-capacity connectivity to more than 38,000 buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is traded on NASDAQ under WCOM. For more information on MCI WorldCom, visit the World Wide Web at http://www.mciworldcom.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Vint Cerf will lead an interactive audio briefing for on this topic today at 12:00 noon (Eastern)/9:00 a.m. (Pacific). Reporters wishing to participate may call toll free: 888-790-1779 or toll: 712-271-0016, password: MCI WorldCom. An audio replay will be available for 48 hours at 800-337-8650.