DENVER, Co -- Tuesday, March 10, 1998 -- U S WEST !NTERPRISE Networking today applauded Cisco Systemsannouncement that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquireNetSpeed, Inc., noting that the acquisition will enable U S WEST tofurther strengthen its national data strategy by allowing it to jointlydevelop IP-centric applications and increase its DSL services speed tomarket.

In January 1998, U S WEST announced its strategic partnership with Ciscoto provide advanced ATM switching and other capabilities to power U SWEST's next-generation national data network. U S WEST also announcedin January that it would use NetSpeed central office and modem equipmentas part of its MegaBit Services ADSL offering in more than 40 citiesthroughout its 14-state region (view the release on-line athttp://www.uswest.com/com/insideusw/news/012998.html).

'Ciscos plan to acquire NetSpeed will enable U S WEST to accelerate thedeployment of DSL services,' said Joe Zell, president, U S WEST!NTERPRISE Networking. 'Clearly, NetSpeed will benefit from having acompany with the manufacturing and operational strength of Cisco behindit, which in turn will help it to meet the enormous demand we areanticipating from our MegaBit DSL service.'

As part of its previously announced strategic relationship, Cisco and US WEST will also jointly develop new network-enabled services such asInternet Protocol (IP) telephony, fax and multimedia applications for arange of national business customers. Now, Cisco will be able to offera complete end-to-end DSL solution to connect customers to theseapplications on U S WESTs national network at speeds up to 7 Mbps.

'As strategic partners, U S WEST and Cisco have worked together on manyfronts to bring advanced services to market,' said Kevin Kennedy, vicepresident and general manager of Ciscos Network-to-User business unit.'Our acquisition of NetSpeed and further entry into the DSL market willenable us to work even closer with U S WEST.'

About U S WEST !NTERPRISE Networking

!NTERPRISE? Networking Services from U S WEST? was created in 1992 toaddress the advanced data networking needs of its customers. The!NTERPRISE family of high-speed data communications services includesFrame Relay Service (both Metropolitan Area Networks and InterLATAout-of-region); Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Service; TransparentLAN Service (TLS?); Private Line LAN Interconnect; the newly announcedMegaBit Services portfolio based on DSL technology; Managed DataServices (MDS); Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); and!NTERACT?, the Internet-based portfolio of networking services designedto facilitate business Intranets via services such as: Internet access,Web hosting, collaborative computing, and electronic commerce.

U S WEST !NTERPRISE Networking can be found on the Internet at www.uswest.com/interprise.

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information areavailable athttp://www.cisco.com.

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