CABLE & WIRELESS OPTUS DELIVERS ON LOCAL TELEPHONY PROMISE

Cable & Wireless Optus today delivered on its commitment to shareholders and institutional investors to install 170,000 directly connected local telephony customers prior to the end of the financial year (30 June, 1999).

The commitment was made prior to the company's listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in November of last year and has been reaffirmed on several occasions since.

"This is another example of Cable & Wireless Optus delivering on promises - doing what we said we would do," a company spokesman said.

"By meeting our forecasts for directly connected local telephony customers, we are building real value in the broadband HFC network.

"The recent announcement of a joint venture with the world's leading aggregator of broadband content and service provision, Excite@Home, as well as the launch of cable modems this year, will continue to build the value of this asset," the spokesman said.

The milestone was reached one week earlier than forecast, due mainly to installations reaching a high of 7,000 customers a week for the past three weeks. Having stress tested the network at this level, local telephony activations will be maintained at around 5,000 customer activations per week.

For more information:
Glen Thomas
Cable & Wireless Optus
Phone: 02 9342 6064