Bell Atlantic Wires President Clinton's Clarksburg Town Meeting

Bell Atlantic Wires President Clinton's Clarksburg Town Meeting

Company Installs Four Miles of Cable, Hundreds of Phone Lines for Presidential Visit

May 21, 1997

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. - A visit by the President of the United States to a
Clarksburg high school to discuss education issues with nearly 200
people isn't an everyday occurrence in West Virginia. And the
communications requirements associated with such a visit are intense
and immediate.

Enter Bell Atlantic.

In the week leading up to tomorrow's town meeting at the
state-of-the-art Robert C. Byrd High School, Bell Atlantic-West
Virginia technicians have placed 22,000 feet of copper and fiber-optic
telephone cable and wiring at the school and other Clarksburg
locations. The company installed two digital electronic systems and
more than 200 phone lines for town meeting coordinators and the press.
A number of the these lines can carry high-speed data communications.

"Bell Atlantic people excel when the pressure is on," said Dennis
Bone, Bell Atlantic-West Virginia president and CEO. "An effort this
large, in a time frame this short, calls for total dedication, and our
employees are proud to step up to the task."

Bell Atlantic employees also were key players on a task force of
business, education, government and media groups that designed and
installed a system to transmit digital audio and video signals of the
town meeting live over the Internet - a first.

Internet users can access the town meeting via RealAudio* or
RealVideo* at the following World Wide Web addresses:
www.cotf.edu/townhall, www.nttc.edu/townhall or
. To access these sites, users must have
RealAudio or RealVideo software, which is available through the
Internet at www.real.com.

Robert C. Byrd High School and Bell Atlantic have enjoyed a strong
relationship as Partners in Education for 14 years. The school also
has high-speed Internet access through the Bell Atlantic WORLD
SCHOOL program, which to date has linked 677 kindergarten through
twelfth-grade West Virginia public schools to the Internet.

* RealAudio and RealVideo are registered trademarks of Progressive Networks, Inc.

Bell Atlantic Corp. (NYSE: BEL) is at the forefront of the new
communications, entertainment and information industry. In the
mid-Atlantic region, the company's telephone company subsidiaries are
the premier providers of local telecommunications and advanced
services. Globally, it is one of the largest investors in the
high-growth wireless communication marketplace. Bell Atlantic also
owns a substantial interest in Telecom Corporation of New Zealand and
is actively developing high-growth national and international business
opportunities in all phases of the industry.