The Nasdaq Stock Market And MCI Worldcom Announce Completion Of Trading Extranet For The New Millennium

The Nasdaq Stock Market® and MCI WorldCom, Inc. (NASDAQ:WCOM) today announced the completion of one of the world's largest Extranets that more than doubles the speed and capacity of Nasdaq's electronic trading network. Under current market characteristics, the Enterprise Wide Network II (EWN II) can handle up to four billion shares traded per day and can be scaled up, if necessary, to accommodate an eight billion share day. Average Nasdaq volume in 1999 is 985 million shares per day, with the peak of 1.4 billion shares reached on April 14, 1999. MCI WorldCom implemented and will maintain the EWN II. "One of the many advantages Nasdaq's new Extranet offers is its simultaneity. When a message is entered by a broker, subscribers throughout the system nationwide receive it within 500 milliseconds. That simultaneous broadcast of information is something the Internet does not yet offer. We thank MCI WorldCom for a job well done," said Alfred R. Berkeley, III, President of The Nasdaq Stock Market. "This advanced trading network forms the basis of Nasdaq's premier access service¾and will be complemented in the future with lower-cost second tier services." Said MCI WorldCom Global Solutions Senior Vice President Anthony T. Russo, "Another key advantage of Nasdaq's new Extranet is its guaranteed delivery of all time-sensitive data. Considering the critical nature of the data, for instance a $100 million order, it's crucial that each and every single transmission is accounted for." EWN II was completed ahead of schedule, due to an accelerated 18-month process whereby MCI WorldCom successfully migrated 7,000 trading work-stations to the new Extranet. Users of the highly reliable EWN II are assured no single point of failure can affect any part of the entire system. The custom, high-speed Internet protocol (IP) network integrates Compaq services, Compaq AlphaServers with Tru64 UNIX, Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) 7500 series, 12000 series Gigabit Switch Routers, and other state-of-the-art equipment, allowing the network to operate at speeds up to 45 Megabits per second. At the heart of the Extranet is MCI WorldCom-designed intelligent-node architecture that provides secure, reliable and simultaneous data transmissions to brokers who monitor stocks, place trades and query the market for real-time information in a Windows-based PC environment. On November 20, 1997, Nasdaq and MCI WorldCom announced a $600 million dollar contract to deliver the EWN II Extranet and replace the award winning Enterprise Wide Network (EWN), which MCI WorldCom installed for Nasdaq in 1995. MCI WorldCom officials say MCI was able to develop the new network ahead of schedule because it was able to leverage past experience gained from designing, building and deploying the initial trading network previously built for Nasdaq. EWN II is managed by MCI WorldCom Global Solutions, which focuses on network architecture, implementation and compliance, as well as ongoing maintenance to optimize the performance of a customer's global telecommunications infrastructure. It has dedicated operations staff working at Nasdaq's data centers in Trumbull, CT, and Rockville, MD. Backup support is provided by MCI WorldCom's Network Operations center in Cary, North Carolina. MCI WorldCom is a global leader in communications services with 1998 revenues of more than $30 billion and established operations in over 65 countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet services. MCI WorldCom's global networks, including its state-of-the-art pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems, provide end-to-end high-capacity connectivity to more than 40,000 buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is traded on NASDAQ under WCOM. For more information on MCI WorldCom, visit the World Wide Web at www.wcom.com. The Nasdaq Stock Market lists nearly 5,000 companies, has a larger dollar volume, and trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. Nasdaq is a subsidiary of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD), the largest securities-industry, self-regulatory organization in the United States. For more information about Nasdaq, visit the Nasdaq Web site at www.nasdaq.com or the Nasdaq NewsroomSM at www.nasdaqnews.com.