February 14, 2002 -- Qwest Communications International Inc. issued the following statement in response to a Wall Street Journal article regarding Qwest's relationship with KMC Telecom Holdings Inc.:

Qwest entered into its relationship with KMC to accelerate Qwest's entry in the fast-growing dial-up Internet market. The relationship enabled Qwest to rapidly deploy an Internet platform to support major contracts with leading access and content providers such as AOLTime Warner and Microsoft's MSN unit. The company has previously disclosed its relationship with KMC to investors and has accounted for the transactions using standard accounting practices.

Qwest has accounted for its obligations to KMC as routine operating leases, in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. These are conventional take-or-pay commitments widely used in the telecommunications industry, in contrast to off balance sheet debt transactions. KMC is not a Qwest affiliate.

As part of the transactions, KMC purchased Internet infrastructure equipment from Qwest to support delivery of the access ports to Qwest and to take advantage of Qwest's ability to buy the equipment at a lower price than KMC would otherwise pay.

Revenues for Internet equipment sales, including other Internet equipment sales to KMC and others in 2000 and 2001, were 2.6 percent in 2000 and 1.5 percent in 2001. Qwest does not expect to have similar sales in 2002.

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