Visual Boosts BellSouth's DSL

ATLANTA and ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Visual Networks® (Nasdaq: VNWK - News), the leading provider of performance management solutions for wide area communications networks and services, and BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS - News), announced today that BellSouth Internet Services will broaden its deployment of Visual Networks' Visual IP InSight(TM) public IP performance management solution to its high-speed digital subscriber line Internet access customers. Visual IP InSight significantly enhances BellSouth Internet Services' ability to monitor its DSL connections and proactively identify and address connectivity issues, resulting in a more productive Internet experience for BellSouth® FastAccess® DSL customers, just as it does for its dial customers today. "BellSouth is committed to providing high-quality Internet access services to its customers," said Eric Small, president of BellSouth Internet Services. "Visual IP InSight enables us to rapidly detect, evaluate and isolate potential connectivity or network performance issues in our dial and FastAccess DSL infrastructure. This product provides significant depth and visibility into the network. Visual IP InSight allows us to give the highest level of support to our Internet customers while improving the performance and quality of our high-speed network." BellSouth is deploying Visual Networks' new hardware based dedicated agent, the Visual IP Service Element (Visual ISE(TM)), in more than 40 locations throughout BellSouth's network to proactively monitor performance. The Visual ISE will also measure and validate customer centric service level agreements and gauge the quality of mission critical IP network services. This will allow BellSouth to fully utilize Visual IP InSight's improved network management and unique reporting capabilities to reduce problem detection time and remotely troubleshoot issues. As a result, BellSouth can reduce overall operational costs and increase customer satisfaction. BellSouth Corp. Visual Networks Inc.