Electronic Bonding Slashes Time to Process Orders

DALLAS, TEXAS (April 28, 1999) - SBC Communications (NYSE: SBC) and Allegiance Telecom, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALGX) today announced they have launched electronic bonding between their operations support systems, reducing the initial time required to process customer orders by more than 75% on average -- making it easier for Texas telephone customers to switch rapidly from one local telephone company to another.

Electronic bonding enables computers at different phone companies to communicate with each other in real-time, providing for rapid sharing of customer information and other data.

"The lack of electronic bonding between facilities-based local carriers has been widely recognized as the principal bottleneck in realizing the competitive local service marketplace envisioned by the Telecommunications Act of 1996," said Royce Holland, chairman and chief executive officer of Allegiance Telecom. "Today's announcement with SBC is another major step toward reaching our goal of implementing electronic bonding with all incumbent local phone providers."

"This is an excellent example of what can be accomplished when a CLEC and an incumbent local provider use their resources and energies to work together," said Royce Caldwell, president of SBC Operations. "This was a truly collaborative effort highlighted by cooperation and teamwork. This could virtually be the model for how local competition should evolve going forward."

Most competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) currently have their own unique type of electronic systems that may not adhere to industry standards. Consequently, some CLECs rely on faxing customer orders to the incumbent local telephone company, which then must manually input this information into their systems for processing. Allegiance, however, developed its electronic interfaces to conform with industry standards, as did Southwestern Bell.

By adopting this process, Allegiance is able to receive from Southwestern Bell a "firm order commitment" - confirmation that an order has been received - much more rapidly. Using electronic interfaces, this confirmation is typically sent within five hours, and on many occasions, it is sent almost instantaneously. Previously, using the manual system, it took approximately 24 hours on average to complete this step.

Once the confirmation is sent, the time for order completion continues to match the five business day average order intervals that Southwestern Bell provides its retail customers. As a comparison, that interval is consistent with the time typically required for a customer to change long distance providers.

To date, 613 CLECs have received state approval to provide local service in the states that SBC serves and 285 CLECs have passed orders to SBC. SBC continues to move aggressively to open all of its markets to competition, and has lost more than 2.3 million lines to competitors to date.

Electronic bonding will significantly increase the volume of customers that can be switched to Allegiance service each month and help eliminate opportunities for service interruptions during the switching of a customer's service from one local provider to another.

The two companies were able to establish electronic bonding between their systems in record time, moving from process initiation to limited production within 90 days. Allegiance and Southwestern Bell hope their success will serve as a template for the industry and encourage other incumbent local exchange companies and CLECs to institute the same process. Electronic bonding is a non-proprietary architecture that is fully available to any local provider.

Allegiance Telecom (www.allegiancetele.com) is a facilities-based local exchange carrier headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Allegiance offers businesses a complete package of telecommunications services, including local, long distance, international calling, high-speed data transmission and Internet services. Allegiance is targeting 24 major metropolitan areas in the U.S. with its "one-stop shopping" approach. Allegiance's common stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol ALGX.

SBC Communications Inc. (www.sbc.com) is a global leader in the telecommunications industry, with more than 37.7 million access lines and 7.2 million wireless customers across the United States, as well as investments in telecommunications businesses in 11 countries. Under the Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, SNET, Nevada Bell and Cellular One brands, SBC, through its subsidiaries, offers a wide range of innovative services. SBC offers local and long-distance telephone service, wireless communications, data communications, paging, Internet access, and messaging, as well as telecommunications equipment, and directory advertising and publishing. SBC has more than 130,000 employees and its annual revenues rank it in the top 50 among Fortune 500 companies.