US LEC ETHERNET LOCAL LOOP TRANSPORT TO NASHVILE AREA.

US LEC Corp. (NASDAQ:CLEC), a full-service provider of IP, data and voice solutions to businesses and enterprise organizations throughout the Eastern United States, has announced the expansion of its Ethernet Local Loop transport service to the metro and surrounding areas of Nashville, Tenn.

"Businesses continue to find Ethernet technology an efficient transport option because of its easy implementation with existing equipment and incremental bandwidth scalability," said Jeff Blackey, senior vice president of marketing and business development for US LEC. "Our expansion of Ethernet Local Loop service to Nashville continues the company's aggressive deployment of IP-based services across its footprint."

The service is now available in 12 of US LEC's switching facilities including Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Fort Myers, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., Miami, New York City, Orlando, Fla., Philadelphia, West Palm Beach, Fla., and Washington, D.C. In addition to Nashville, US LEC recently announced the availability of Ethernet Local Loop in Richmond, Va.

Ethernet Local Loop gives businesses a flexible solution that can be custom-tailored to fit individual needs. US LEC offers Internet and MPLS VPN bandwidth in increments with speeds ranging from 3 Megabits per second (Mbs) to 500Mbs, allowing businesses to buy only the bandwidth needed, with built in scalability to handle growth. US LEC also offers a bursting option to handle heavy, intermittent traffic.

All traffic travels over US LEC's secure network and supports Internet Protocol (IP), providing easy integration with existing infrastructure and applications. By utilizing the Ethernet platform, customers can also eliminate the need for special equipment or upgrades, such as new routers or network interface cards.

US LEC also offers quality of service (QoS) guarantees allowing traffic to be prioritized according to customer requirements. This allows the most important traffic to utilize available bandwidth first. As priority traffic decreases, other traffic uses available bandwidth.

About US LEC

Based in Charlotte, N.C., US LEC is a full service provider of IP, data and voice solutions to medium and large businesses and enterprise organizations throughout 16 Eastern states and the District of Columbia. US LEC offers advanced, IP-based, data and voice services such as MPLS VPN and Ethernet, as well as comprehensive Dynamic TSM VoIP-enabled services and features. The company also offers local and long distance services and data services such as frame relay, Multi-Link Frame Relay and ATM. US LEC provides a broad array of complementary services, including conferencing, data backup and recovery, data center services and Web hosting, as well as managed firewall and router services for advanced data networking. US LEC also offers selected voice services in 27 additional states and provides enhanced data services, selected Internet services and MegaPOP(R) (local dial-up Internet access for ISPs) nationwide.

For more information, visit http://www.uslec.com or call 704/319-1942.