NEWS                                                      
November 1, 1996

     HUNDT ASKS NETWORK RELIABILITY AND INTEROPERABILITY COUNCIL
TO
          MONITOR IMPACT OF INTERNET GROWTH ON PUBLIC NETWORKS

     FCC Chairman Reed Hundt has asked the members of the Federal
Communications
Commission's Network Reliability and Interoperability Council to
continue to monitor the
impact of the growth of Internet traffic on the nation's public
telecommunications networks,
and to advise the Commission whether action by the Commission or
the industry is necessary
to ensure network reliability.  He said: "Questions that have
been raised about the impact of
Internet usage underscore the importance of this Council and its
work.  It is vital for the
public to know that when questions like this are raised, there is
a place to go for answers."

     Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO of NYNEX, who also serves
as Council Chair,
agreed close monitoring is appropriate.  He asked the Council's
committee monitoring
overall network reliability to report on developments and to
advise the Council whether
specific actions are appropriate.

     In its quarterly report to the Council,  the monitoring
group -- the Network Reliability
Steering Committee -- emphasized that no carrier has reported an
event associated with
Internet use that meets the threshold for reportable outages --
generally a network failure that
deprives more than 30,000 customers of the ability to make a call
for more than 30 minutes.
  
     The Council agreed that, with the Internet's present mix of
applications,  its growth
does not pose any unusual network outage hazards.  However, rapid
Internet growth does
represent a capacity management challenge often requiring rapid
and costly equipment
augmentation.  The Council agreed to continue to monitor on-line
service growth and its
impact on network reliability.

     The Network Reliability and Interoperability Council is a
Federal Advisory
Committee organized by the FCC to advise the Commission, and the
telecommunications
industry, on what steps can and should be taken to improve the
reliability and interoperability
of the nation's telecommunications networks.  Its members
includes CEO-level
representatives of telecommunications service providers,
equipment manufacturers,
telecommunications standards-setting organizations and consumer
organizations. 

     Further information about the Council is available on-line
at: 
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/nric.
                                  - FCC -
     Office of Engineering and Technology contact: Jim Keegan at
(202) 418-2323.
     News Media contact: David Fiske at (202) 418-0500.