CLINTON, Miss. -- WorldCom (NASDAQ: WCOM), the leading global business data and Internet communications provider, today announced that it will provide the high performance network and associated services for the Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN). DREN is the Department of Defense's premier state-of-the-art network supporting more than 6,000 DoD scientists and engineers at super computer laboratories, test centers and universities across the U.S. Under terms of the agreement, WorldCom will implement leading edge Wide Area Network (WAN) services to enable researchers and engineers to better communicate and collaborate on DoD initiatives. When completed, DREN will provide data communications for Department of Defense civilian and military research facilities. The minimum guarantee of the contract is $6 million. An estimated $70 million in orders will be issued during the three-year base period of this contract, with a $450 million ceiling price over the ten-year period. "DREN represents one of the most valuable technologically-driven networking initiatives in all of DoD and requires a network that meets the highest levels of reliability, availability, and integrity," said Jerry Edgerton, senior vice president, WorldCom Government Markets. "WorldCom has been providing federal, civilian, and defense agencies with advanced network services for more than 10 years and has the essential expertise to meet the challenges of supporting the DoD's High Performance Computing community well into the next decade." WorldCom Inc.