Bell Atlantic Awards Beverly, Mass., Resident With Company's Highest Honor

Bell Atlantic Awards Beverly, Mass., Resident With Company's Highest Honor

Kathy McNeill Recognized for Outstanding Customer Service

March 30, 1998

NEW YORK -- Kathy McNeill of Beverly, Mass., has been awarded the
company's highest employee honor, the Leaders in Excellence Award.

McNeill, Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages, training specialist, earned the
award for developing a process that helps the company reduce bad debt
and helpsidentify and remove illegitimate businesses from the yellow
pages directory.

The Bell Atlantic Leaders in Excellence Award will be presented each
year to individual employees and employee teams who have demonstrated
a devotion to quality, along with a commitment to customers or an
outstanding dedication to community service.

McNeill is one of seven individuals and 18 employee teams who will be
honored tomorrow at area celebrations hosted by Bell Atlantic's senior
executives. Honorees were selected from more than 2,000 nominees.

"Congratulations to our champions, who have set a new benchmark
against which future accomplishments will be measured," said Bell
Atlantic Vice Chairman Ivan Seidenberg. "Their best-in-class
performance and dedication to excellence is a model for us all."

McNeill took the initiative to solve Bell Atlantic's problem of bad
debt among certain directory advertisers. Utilizing a new system that
she devised, McNeill identified 45 accounts in one of our directories
that represented more than $500,000 in unsecured credit risk. Many of
those advertisers were dropped from the directory, and a significant
number of them turned out to be illegitimate businesses. As a result
of McNeill's new system, Bell Atlantic's customers receive a higher
quality directory.

McNeill's methods have since been adopted for other directories in
areas where bad debt is a concern.

Note to Editors: Photographs are available upon request.

Bell Atlantic - formed through the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX -
is at the forefront of the new communications and information
industry. With 40.5 million telephone access lines and six million
wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic companies are premier
providers of advanced wireline voice and data services, market leaders
in wireless services and the world's largest publishers of directory
information. Bell Atlantic companies are also among the world's
largest investors in high-growth global communications markets, with
operations and investments in 21 countries.