Verizon to Roll Out Wireless Broadband

Verizon Wireless Monday said it is introducing new high-speed wireless broadband services
for its business customers.

Beginning in the third quarter of 2003, Verizon will offer two different
wireless broadband standards. Verizon said it will offer 1xEV-DO service in
Washington, D.C. and San Diego, California, while offering a Wi-Fi-based
wireless broadband service elsewhere around the nation. Verizon said the
1xEV-DO service will offer wireless data speeds of up to 2.4 Megabits per
second.

The company will also offer an 802.11b, or Wi-Fi service, around most of the
country through connections to its wide area network (WAN) and wireless
nodes nationwide. The 1xEV-DO service will utilize virtual private network
(VPN) connections, so that customers can connect to their own corporate
local area network (LAN) or intranet.

Verizon Wireless disclosed some details about the new service which will be
commercially available in the third quarter of 2003 at CTIA Wireless 2003 in
New Orleans, Louisiana. Verizon said its 1xEV-DO service will be faster
than GPRS and EDGE data transmission speeds.

Verizon said the new service
will enable customers to remotely access corporate intranets and databases,
corporate e-mail with attachments, large file transfers, and even streamed
audio and video. For customers to achieve high-speed wireless data
transfers, they will need 1xEV-DO devices, such as PCMCIA cards, modems and
mobile computer-phone gadgets.

Verizon Wireless said it has completed technological trials of its 1xEV-DO
in Washington with Lucent Technologies and Nortel Networks
in San Diego. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of
Verizon Communications and Vodafone .

In other Verizon news, Verizon SuperPages.com has been chosen by About.com
as the yellow pages service for the Internet content destination. Now, when
About.com users access the yellow pages service they will be able to also
use MerchantMatch, a comparative pricing service, and My Directory, a
personal directory services that allows users to customize both business and
residential listings.