07/24/2000 - Atlantic.Net Acquires South Carolina Internet Provider

NEWS RELEASE
Media Contact: Doreen Sabina
Phone: (904) 249-3946
E-mail: doreen@atlantic.net

GAINESVILLE, FL (JULY 25, 2000) - Atlantic.Net, one of the Southeast's most reliable Internet service providers, today announced it has completed the purchase of Aiken, S.C.-based Duesouth/SCescape. With this agreement, Atlantic.Net acquires Duesouth's dedicated access accounts, Web hosting clients and dial-up subscribers in Columbia and Aiken, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. In addition, Atlantic.Net has retained two of Duesouth's employees who will run the Aiken office. Specific terms of the deal are not being disclosed. This is Atlantic.Net's first acquisition outside Florida and fourth in the past 12 months.

Atlantic.Net owns and operates its entire network, which spans more than 70 cities across the Southeastern United States. E-business services include designing, installing and managing customized wide area networks, fractional T-1 through DS-3 connectivity, DSL and ISDN access and Web hosting. Managed dial-up services are also available to other Internet service providers.

Atlantic.Net's consumer dial-up services run on a Cisco Powered Network. Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. All Atlantic.Net consumer accounts include access to the World Wide Web, electronic mail and toll-free technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Consumer accounts start at $9.95 per month. Atlantic.Net's most popular account, the Unlimited Plan, costs $19.95 per month.

Atlantic.Net was founded in 1994 by two University of Florida students, Marty Puranik and Jose Sanchez, who started the company by selling computers. After being denied Internet access through the university in 1995, Puranik and Sanchez launched one of the first commercial Internet services in Gainesville and Ocala, Florida. Today, Atlantic.Net serves more than 40,000 subscribers in seven states. Revenues have doubled every year since inception and in 1999 Atlantic.Net was recognized as Florida's 15th fastest-growing private company.

To learn more about Atlantic.Net's complete line of services, call 1-800-422-2936 or visit the corporate Web site at http://www.atlantic.net. For more information about this release, call Doreen Sabina at 904-249-3946 or e-mail doreen@atlantic.net. For company information, check out http://newsroom.atlantic.net. Atlantic.Net's new office in Aiken is located at 125 Laurens Street. The office phone is (803) 649-0015.