PrimeCo Sustains Rapid Growth While Conducting Largest Network Infrastructure Conversion in History of Wireless Industry

PrimeCo Sustains Rapid Growth While Conducting Largest
Network Infrastructure Conversion in History of Wireless Industry

Company Replaces Eight Switches and Over 1,200 Base
Stations in Six Months Without Disrupting Service or Deviating
from 1998 Business Plan

October 20, 1998

Editors' Summary: PrimeCo has converted its network infrastructure
to Lucent Technologies, becoming the first major U.S. PCS player
to adopt a single-vendor strategy. The company managed to conduct
the conversion in just over six months while achieving solid growth
and sustaining its aggressive business goals for the year.

DALLAS -- PrimeCo Personal Communications, L.P., the
premier regional provider of PCS/wireless service, today announced it completed
the wireless industry's largest network infrastructure conversion while
simultaneously adding 108,000 new customers during the third quarter, bringing
its total subscriber base to over 700,000 and boosting its market penetration to
over 1.8 percent of the population covered by its network. This market
penetration rate ranks among the highest in the PCS* industry.

The company accomplished the technical feat, which included replacing eight
mobile switching centers and over 1,200 base stations in Chicago and central
Illinois, Austin/San Antonio, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Wisconsin, in just over six
months without interfering with customer phone service. PrimeCo, whose network
infrastructure is now provisioned exclusively by Lucent Technologies, becomes
the first major U.S. PCS provider to adopt a single-vendor strategy, which is
expected to provide multiple consumer benefits.

The history-making conversion was executed flawlessly by a team comprised of
both PrimeCo and Lucent veterans, according to Lowell McAdam, PrimeCo's
president and CEO, who characterized the effort as three times the magnitude
required to initially launch PrimeCo service in 1996. "Our overriding goal was to
accomplish this monumental task without disrupting service to our customers,
slowing our growth or negatively impacting our 1998 business plan. We
succeeded. PrimeCo is perfectly poised for the launch of the fourth quarter selling
season."

Operating one network-wide platform positions PrimeCo for the explosive growth
expected in the wireless industry over the next decade. McAdam said the strategy
increases the overall reliability of the network, enables the company to standardize
engineering, network monitoring and maintenance processes, and will yield
significant operational savings that will help PrimeCo become a more cost-
effective carrier, an imperative for operators competing in today's superheated
wireless marketplace.

McAdam added the move will also significantly shorten research and development
cycles for new products and services by eliminating network interoperability issues
and by forging a highly focused relationship between PrimeCo and Lucent. The
direction PrimeCo intends to take its business will require infrastructure
equipment and handsets capable of delivering greater volumes of data. In the
future, PrimeCo will focus its product development efforts on consumer friendly
applications that enable its customers to use their PrimeCo phone in a variety of
new ways, like conducting simple interactive transactions such as making airline
reservations and, via time-and-location-specific technology, checking traffic
reports and locating nearby restaurants.

Industry analysts report the wireless industry has been adding about one million
subscribers per month during the past year and predict that by the year 2000, one
in every three Americans will carry a wireless phone. According to McAdam,
wireline minutes are already migrating to wireless phones and the recent
introduction of rate plans that include roaming and long-distance charges will
accelerate that process. "Wireless companies that are focused on delivering
products and services targeted toward the mass market will get the lion's share of
those converted minutes. Through our strategic partnership with Lucent, we can
bring innovative new products aimed at mainstream consumers to market faster
than ever before."

Carly Fiorina, president of Lucent's Global Service Provider operation said,
"PrimeCo has once again taken a bold step to position itself at the forefront of the
PCS. PrimeCo's selection of Lucent as its sole, strategic network provider
underlies its commitment to providing customers with enhanced capabilities, speed
to market for advanced services, and quality performance."

PrimeCo Personal Communications, which is owned by AirTouch
Communications and Bell Atlantic, provides digital wireless service in more than
30 major cities in Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia and
Wisconsin. Sale of the company's Hawaii license and operations is pending
regulatory approval. In the continental U.S., the company has PCS licenses
covering 60 million potential customers in 10 major trading areas and has nearly
3,100 employees. At the end of the third quarter 1998, PrimeCo had more than
700,000 subscribers. PrimeCo phones and service are sold through the company's
83 stores and kiosks, its business-to-business direct sales force, about 2,200
indirect retailers and its toll-free telephone sales line 1 (800) PRIMECO^SM. The
address for PrimeCo's interactive web site is www.primeco.com.

Special Note for Editors: Print-quality artwork can be downloaded from
PrimeCo's Multimedia Archive, located in the company's Digital News
Room site. The Multimedia Archive includes photos of PrimeCo
executives, products, retail environments, innovative antenna locations, as
well as artwork for the corporate logo and Primetheus(SM), the pink alien
featured in PrimeCo's television ads. The URL for the Digital News
Room is http://news.primeco.com.