BNSI Announces Its Participation in the Akamai Accelerated Network Program

January 3, 2000 - Charlottesville, Va
Contact: Gerard P. Learmonth Sr., Ph.D

Broadband Network Services Incorporated (BNSI) announced today that it has been chosen to be a host site for Akamai Technologies' Accelerated Network program.

Akamai Technologies [NASDAQ: AKAM] offers rapid and reliable Internet content and application delivery for its customers. Among Akamai's growing list of customers are Yahoo!,CNN, CBS, Martha Stewart Living, Ticketmaster Online/City Search, Brittanica.com, and many other popular Web destinations.

Akamai accelerates the delivery of Web content through a network of distributed servers located at selected Internet "off ramps" and by the use of sophisticated routing procedures. BNSI is now one of Akamai's selected "off ramps."

"With BNSI serving as an Akamai host site, not only will our directly connected customers realize the benefits of speed and reliability in Web content delivery, but so will many others in the Charlottesville community," said Jerry Learmonth, CEO of BNSI.

"In conjunction with the Community-Based Network eXhange (CBNX) launched earlier this year, the availability of a local Akamai server site will further enhance the speed, quality, and reliability of Internet service to the entire community," Learmonth added.

With Web pages containing more "rich content" like graphic images and audio and video streams, delivering this content to a Web browser quickly and reliably can be difficult as the Internet strains under an increased traffic load. It doesn't matter how fast your local connection is when the Internet itself is congested.

Akamai addresses this problem for its customers by caching, or prepositioning, Web content at its strategically located servers nearer to the ultimate user. That part of the content that is not already cached is transmitted using intelligent routing that bypasses Internet bottlenecks.

Learmonth added that "with the Akamai servers, BNSI expects to see a decrease in the total traffic on its T-3 Internet backbone connection. To the extent that popular Web content is downloaded efficiently to these servers, frequent and unnecessary downloads from the Internet are eliminated. This is consistent with the CBNX concept of keeping 'local traffic local.'"

About Akamai
Akamai Technologies is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has offices in San Mateo, California. Akamai provides a global Internet content and application delivery service that improves Web site speed and reliability and enables richer, more engaging Web site content. Currently, Akamai has deployed 1700 servers in 30 countries across 100 different telecommunications networks. Akamai (pronounced AH kuh my) is Hawaiian for intelligent, clever and cool. www.akamai.com

About BNSI
Broadband Network Services Incorporated (BNSI) offers advanced data communications services to enterprises and individuals in Central Virginia. BNSI offers inter-organizational connectivity, Internet access, VPN's, Server co-location, Web Site hosting, and collaborative applications. www.bnsi.net