ATIS Board of Directors Elects New Second Vice-Chair, Mark Wegleitner of Verizon

Qwest CTO Pieter Poll elected to serve as Chair of ATIS Technology and Operations Council

March 5, 2007, Washington, DC – ATIS announced today that ATIS Board Member Mark Wegleitner, Senior Vice President, Technology and Chief Technology Officer for Verizon, was elected to the position of Second Vice-Chair by the ATIS Board of Directors. Other current officers of the ATIS Board of Directors include ATIS Chairman Chris Rice, Chief Technology Officer, AT&T; First Vice-Chair Nick Adamo, Senior Vice President, Cisco Systems, Inc.; and Treasurer Harald Braun, President of Siemens Networks LLC.

“We are extremely pleased to have Mark as Second Vice Chair of the ATIS Board of Directors,” said ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller. “Mark’s vision and passion for new and innovative approaches to technology, and his dedication and commitment to ATIS as a member of the board of directors, has enabled our organization to successfully address critical technical and operational issues, and produce priority standards on behalf of our industry.”

Wegleitner’s responsibilities at Verizon include technology assessment, network architecture, platform development and laboratory testing for the local and long distance wireline communications businesses, as well as network planning for local wireline communications. In his current role, he and his organization support all business units in the management of technology and network matters.

ATIS also announced today that Qwest Chief Technology Officer, Pieter Poll, was elected by the ATIS Board to serve as chair of the ATIS Technology and Operations (TOPS) Council. The Council identifies the industry’s most pressing technical and operational priorities, and coordinates standardization efforts industry-wide to produce interoperable, implementable, end-to-end solutions. To support its efforts, the Council establishes written work plans identifying areas of concentration for priority standards activities. Additionally, the Council oversees the progress toward completion of the work plans, as ATIS and other standards organizations execute the necessary standards work.

Areas of focus for the TOPS Council in recent years include: VoIP; Network Security; NGN Architecture and Services; and Data Interchange, among other identified priorities. The Council recently launched an Exploratory Group on Convergence , which is examining the various aspects of convergence in support of NGN deployment. Additionally, the Council has launched Focus Groups to study and make recommendations with respect to standardization activities regarding Optical Networking, as well as for Intercarrier VoIP Call Routing.

The ATIS Board of Directors is comprised of 64 of the most influential senior executives in the communications industry. It is a diverse group of the industry’s leading executives from all areas of telecom, to include the service provider, manufacturer and software communities.

About ATIS
ATIS is a leading standards development and technical planning organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations standards for the communications and related information technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Participants from more than 300 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 23 industry committees, Incubator Solutions Program, and other activities. www.atis.org