AT&T Wins $3.6 Million Hosting Contract From Blue Cross And Blue Shield


CHICAGO -/June 03, 2004 Wi-Fi Technology News/- AT&T announced it has won a three-year, $3.6 million contract from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association for integrated hosting and storage services. The enhanced program provides the independent, locally operated Blue Plans with an integrated, national database of all BlueCard? Program accessible providers that contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, and enhances business continuity capabilities.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is made up of 41 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that collectively provide healthcare coverage to more than 88 million -- nearly one-in-three -- Americans. This contract builds on the success of an existing AT&T hosting relationship with the Association for "Blue Exchange," which allows all Blue Plans to exchange certain data with each other over a secure private network.

Under the new contract, AT&T will provide enterprise hosting and storage area networking services in its Chicagoland Internet Data Center (IDC) that enable the Association to deploy a nationwide Provider Data Repository (PDR). The enhanced, centralized online database lists contact information on all BlueCard Program accessible healthcare providers that contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, including doctors, hospitals, dentists, clinics and other healthcare facilities.

Additionally, AT&T will support the Association's business continuity and disaster recovery plan by providing an end-to-end storage solution that includes database back-up and restore capabilities.

Through the AT&T BusinessDirect? Web portal, the Association gains around-the-clock online access to up-to-the-minute information about the performance of its network and applications.

AT&T provides an industry-leading Web, data and applications hosting environment with 21 IDCs worldwide, with plans to open additional centers this year in Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo and London. The centers are protected from power failure, physical intrusion and network outages by extensive back-up power and cooling systems, multi-layered security, fire protection, and network redundancy and diversity.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association PDR application integrates servers and applications from Sun Microsystems Inc., within Sun architectures, with AT&T's hosting, storage and networking solution.

This agreement illustrates the success of AT&T's network integration strategy, which includes teaming with strategic alliance companies, such as Sun, to provide customers with the benefit of one-stop shopping for their enterprise networking needs.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is comprised of 41 independent, locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans that collectively provide healthcare coverage for more than 88 million -- nearly one-in-three -- Americans.

About AT&T
For more than 125 years, AT&T (NYSE "T") has been known for unparalleled quality and reliability in communications. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company is a global leader in local, long distance, Internet and transaction-based voice and data services.