AT&T Wins Frost & Sullivan 2009 Market Leadership Award in Dedicated Internet Access Service

DALLAS, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T* today announced that it has been awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2009 Market Share Leadership Award in Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) Service, North America. AT&T was selected to receive this award based on its complete portfolio of high quality, innovative and high value Managed Internet Service (MIS) as well as its ability to provide online features through AT&T BusinessDirect®.

According to Frost & Sullivan, AT&T's leadership is attributed to its management of MIS, proving the performance and functionality required to support customers' operations.

To function better, faster and more cost effectively in today's market, businesses seek a strong portfolio of innovative features linked with MIS based on their needs to support management and workflows, reported Frost & Sullivan. AT&T's ability to provide a full suite of flexible tools and capabilities and the option to add on services as needed are key strengths of the company.

Through AT&T BusinessDirect, AT&T's award-winning Web portal, customers can perform a multitude of highly secure network management tasks quickly. AT&T BusinessDirect enables users to manage their network service online to improve productivity, increase the speed and accuracy of their network transactions and optimize network efficiency, all while reducing costs.

"AT&T has maintained its market leadership by focusing on its value to customers and leveraging that value to retain customers," said Roopashree Honnachari, Senior Analyst of Frost & Sullivan. "While many competitors are positioning themselves as low cost providers, AT&T communicates its strength with reliability, technical expertise and quality of Internet access.

"The company offers customers more robustness, reliability and convergence with a full suite of value-added solutions also provided by AT&T, including voice services and security services, among others," added Honnachari.

AT&T MIS provides business customers of all sizes, from small businesses to large corporations with high-speed dedicated access, global reach, optimal performance and industry-leading security. Designed to meet a variety of business needs, including connecting data centers and branch offices and faster transfer of large amounts of data over the Internet, MIS is provided via a dedicated circuit of pre-subscribed bandwidth between locations. This circuit is reserved for AT&T business customers' exclusive use for voice, data, video and multimedia.

The Frost & Sullivan Award is presented to the company that has demonstrated excellence within its industry.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best in class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages almost 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from 31 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.frost.com.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation's fastest 3G network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet and voice services. AT&T offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse(SM) and AT&T | DIRECTV(SM) brands. The company's suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T's Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations are known for their leadership in directory publishing and advertising sales. In 2009, AT&T again ranked No. 1 in the telecommunications industry on FORTUNE® magazine's list of the World's Most Admired Companies.

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATTNews. Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ATT to discover more about our consumer and wireless services or at www.facebook.com/ATTSmallBiz to discover more about our small business services.

© 2010 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. 3G service not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies.

SOURCE AT&T Inc.