March 26, 2002 -- AT&T announced that NBC will hub and centrally manage programs and commercials for its 13 owned-and-operated television stations over AT&T's optical network.

These stations cover nearly 28 percent of the nation's viewing households. Individually managed and staffed, the 13 stations broadcast NBC network programs and present substantial amounts of locally produced news, sports and public affairs programming.

Historically TV station groups have not integrated their stations or centrally managed their program playback. AT&T's advanced optical network provides NBC with the capability to centrally manage its inventory of commercials and programs for all 13 stations.

Under the three-year agreement, AT&T is installing AT&T ACCU-Ring Network Access Service from three regional NBC-TV hubs in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami to 10 remote TV stations in Birmingham, AL, Chicago, Columbus OH, Dallas, Hartford, CT, Philadelphia, Providence, RI, Raleigh, NC, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.

These NBC TV stations are being provided with dedicated high-capacity access for digital transmissions -- all fully managed by AT&T. Currently nine of the 13 stations are online, and the remaining stations should be completed later this year.

ACCU-Ring service, which is available at speeds up to OC192 (10 Gigabits per second), delivers high reliability and millisecond restoration through the network's self-healing Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) architecture. AT&T's core long-distance network currently includes more than 100 regional SONET rings, while the local network employs more than 6,700 metro SONET rings.

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