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[Paul Jacobs <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Local Competition Decision




WorldCom earned a major victory in the U.S. Supreme Court on May 14 when the
Court upheld six-year-old federal rules designed to spur local phone
competition, thus boosting WorldCom's efforts to move into the local phone
business.

In 1996, Congress approved a plan to open the $110 billion local telephone
service market to competition. Since then, Verizon, BellSouth Corp., SBC
Communications Inc., and Qwest Communications International Inc., all of
whom were ordered to make lines available to WorldCom, have been contesting
the details in court and attempting to collect hundreds of millions of
dollars for the use of their facilities.

The positive ruling for WorldCom means the FCC can set the Bells' prices
based on future cost estimates instead of historical data, thus resulting in
a lower cost of entry for competitors who wish to buy access onto the Bell
networks. The court also said that regulators could force the former Bells
to make some network changes at the request of new entrants.

"The Supreme Court's decision in favor of the FCC's local competition rules
is a tremendous victory for consumer and business customers and the
competitive carriers such as WorldCom that serve them," said Michael H.
Salsbury, WorldCom General Counsel. "This ruling finally ends six years of
uncertainty created by Bell legal challenges and other stonewalling."

Available in over 90 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and with over
9,000 route miles of fiber-optic cable, WorldCom Local offers customers an
optimal gateway into our local-to-global-to-local IP network. WorldCom Local
provides a comprehensive suite of both digital and analog products,
including Business Lines, Digital and Analog Trunks, Full Service T1/Digital
Gateway, and Local ISDN-PRI. For more information on WorldCom Local, go to
Insite. A newly updated customer presentation is also available.