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2002

THUS plc, one of the UK's leading providers of voice, data, Internet and contact centre services, announced today the launch of Demon Premier Express, a suite of revolutionary ADSL products for business customers, delivering superior performance and reliability to standard ADSL based products. Demon Premier Express, is the perfect choice for high-end business users, meeting the demand for an intermediate service between "one size fits all" ADSL offerings and high-capacity leased lines. Demon Premier Express is available to customers based within 3.5km of enabled exchanges in the central London area with further UK roll-out planned.

Demon Premier Express provides businesses with a number of competitive advantages over existing ADSL connections:

• Improved throughput capacity via contention ratios of 5:1 or 1:1, compared to existing 20:1 and 50:1 offerings.

• Delivery via THUS's state-of-the-art national network instead of BT's "best effort" IP network, offering improved quality of service compared to other ADSL services.

• Cost savings compared to traditional leased line offerings.

The increased performance delivered by Demon Premier Express is achieved by THUS allocating up to ten times more backbone network capacity per customer than standard ADSL services. This provides business customers with significantly improved bandwidth throughput. Service providers "overbook" backbone network capacity, similar to the way the airline industry overbooks seats on flights, because customers do not typically use their broadband connection to its full potential at the same time. It is recognised that customers will see a slow degradation in the speed of standard ADSL connections as more and more users compete for scarce backbone capacity, especially since broadband growth in the UK has increased significantly since April 2001 while BT's backbone capacity has not.

THUS has achieved significantly improved quality of service by being the first UK service provider to offer an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) based ADSL service allowing THUS to use a proven carrier class switching technology as the platform for Demon Premier Express. ATM will enable THUS to offer a variety of new services such as Voice over DSL (VoDSL). A key benefit of using ATM interconnect is that it enables THUS to intercept and carry a higher proportion of customer traffic over its own highly resilient fibre-optic network using what is called an "In Span Handover". This innovation, made possible by a recent Oftel determination in THUS's favour, means customers will benefit from further increased reliability and a more economical service.

Demon Premier Express also delivers all the benefits of Demon's standard ADSL products:

• It is self-install, so customers needn't pay an expensive

  call-out charge for an engineer.

• Scalable access options from 0.5 Mbps to 2 Mbps downstream.

• Transparent fixed monthly service charges provide businesses with much greater visibility of their Internet expenditure.

• Real-time connectivity allows businesses to react quickly to customer enquiries and forge closer links with suppliers, enabling real-time inventory control and easier stock ordering.

• High-speed data transfer via an always-on, fixed cost connection provides a highly effective remote access solution for SME teleworkers.

• 24x7 technical support by phone*.

"Demon Premier Express is the first truly differentiated broadband service to be offered in the UK," said Nigel Stevens, Product Director at THUS. "We recognised early on that ATM interconnect would be a potentially attractive means of delivering broadband services, and focused heavily on addressing the commercial, regulatory and technical hurdles associated with it to bring this innovative service to market."

Bill Allan, THUS Chief Executive added: "THUS has led the way in negotiations with BT over product enhancements, has pushed forward the debate on regulatory action, and was the first operator to complete a trial of DSL interconnect with BT. Premier Express is a further proof of THUS's commitment to providing businesses with the fastest, most resilient and cost efficient broadband service technically achievable."

* subject to terms and conditions