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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Duper who wrote (40680)	3/24/1998 8:38:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 61433

****OT***** BellSouth Announces the End Of The Busy Signal Business Wire - March 24, 1998 08:18 %BELLSOUTH BLS %GEORGIA %TELECOMMUNICATIONS %COMPUTERS %ELECTRONICS %COMED %INTERACTIVE %MULTIMEDIA %INTERNET %PRODUCT V%BW P%BW ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 1998-- BusyConnect(SM) offers an alternative to the endless beep You've just remembered it's your mom's birthday and you've forgotten to call. Running to the phone, you quickly dial her number, only to hear the dreaded busy signal -- "beep...beep...beep." Your mom is prone to talk for hours at a time, but you dutifully redial again. And again. And again. Sound familiar? Now, with BellSouth's BusyConnect service, residential and small business customers have an easy way to reach a party whose line is busy, putting an end to the most annoying sound in the world: the busy signal. BellSouth's BusyConnect service is an automated repeat dialing service that lets residential and small business customers pay 75 cents to be notified when a line is busy and connected as it becomes available. The service is absolutely free to BellSouth(R) Complete Choice(R) and Repeat Dialing subscribers. These customers can press "1" at anytime to activate the service and will not be charged 75 cents. Here's how it works. Instead of hearing the busy signal, a caller who dials a busy number will now hear a pre-recorded message that says, "This line is busy. We will continue to try this number for you during the next 30 minutes for a charge of 75 cents. You will be notified by a special ring and automatically connected once it becomes available. To accept, press '1'." Because BusyConnect is available on an "as needed" basis, callers do not have to subscribe to the service in advance or remember special feature codes, making it an ideal service for the occasional user. "There's probably nothing more frustrating for customers than getting a busy signal while they're in a hurry and then having to wait for a phone line to free-up," said Barry Joyce, BellSouth product manager. "Over the past few years, we have greatly reduced busy signals by introducing services like MemoryCall(R) voice mail and Call Waiting Deluxe and Caller ID. These services let customers know when someone is trying to reach them, and they provide several options for handling the call. Still, 13% of all calls end in a busy signal." On the heels of a successful trial in Miami that led to over 19,000 activations per month, BusyConnect will soon be offered to more than 4.5 million customers in key regions throughout Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee by mid-June. BellSouth is also evaluating a product that will work with BusyConnect. Instead of re-dialing a number that is busy, this service will allow the customer to record a message for the caller. BellSouth will continue to call the busy number to deliver the message. With these new services, the next generation of telephone customers might never hear the annoying busy signal often associated with purchasing concert tickets, making a doctor's appointment or ordering a pizza. BellSouth is totally changing the way people think about telecommunications by giving them more options and control over how they communicate. BellSouth (NYSE:BLS) is a $20 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, Internet access, directory advertising and publishing and other information services to more than 29 million customers in 20 countries worldwide. Its telephone operations provide service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world for nearly 23 million telephone lines in a nine-state region that includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The BellSouth Web site is located at bellsouth.com. CONTACT: BellSouth Judy Miller, 404/927-7430 jmiller@bridge.bellsouth.com