AboveNet Keeps E! Networks Up to Speed With a High-Performance Metro Gig-E Connection

E! Networks is the latest Customer to Use AboveNet’s Newly Completed Los Angeles Network

White Plains, NY, April 14, 2004 — AboveNet, Inc., the leading provider of optical infrastructure, announced today it signed a contract with E! Networks, the world’s largest distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle programming. AboveNet will provide its Metro Gig-ETM service, a powerful, high-performance optical IP connection for the enterprise. E! Networks will use the new high-speed network to deploy web-based applications used to connect its creative, production and operational units with its headquarters in Los Angeles.

E!’s Los Angeles headquarters houses a variety of production studios and executive offices. The company will use AboveNet’s Metro Gig-E service to handle its increasing use of mission-critical high-bandwidth, web-based applications. Metro Gig-E ensures secure and dedicated access through AboveNet’s metropolitan fiber network, essentially eliminating the costs and complexity of carrier involvement, while delivering a higher-performance, scalable network with Gigabit Ethernet capacity over two dedicated strands of fiber.

“Our business is dependent on the 24 x 7 availability and performance of our network; it is our primary asset for connecting and optimizing the collaborative tools among our creative, production and operational units,” said Jeff Mayzurk, vice president, technology, E! Networks. “AboveNet proved it had a powerful solution with the quality of service requirements necessary to serve our growing bandwidth needs.”

“We are delighted to deliver service for E! Networks through our world-class optical network infrastructure,” said Bill LaPerch, President and Chief Executive Officer of AboveNet. “Our Metro Gig-E is the perfect fit and will create a differential advantage in the way E! Networks does business.”

AboveNet supports other brand name entertainment and Fortune 500 clients in the Los Angeles area. The company has completed its full optical network build-out in Los Angeles, which connects nationwide to service areas in major North American markets such as New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area.

About E! Networks
Based in Los Angeles, E! Networks is the world's largest producer and distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle-related programming. The company operates E! Entertainment Television, the 24-hour network with programming dedicated to the world of entertainment; The Style Network where life gets a new look, and E! Online, located at www.eonline.com. E! is currently available to 84 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers in the U.S. Style currently counts 35 million subscribers with commitments to reach over 40 million in 2004. E! Online reaches 6 million monthly unique U.S. adult users.

About AboveNet, Inc.
AboveNet, Inc. is the top provider of integrated access services for leading edge enterprises. AboveNet builds and operates an office-to-office, 100-percent optical network enabling customers to create an efficient, cost-effective network that breaks economic and performance barriers imposed in the last mile by complex legacy telecom infrastructures. With one of the most extensive metropolitan optical network in the world, data centers throughout the US and Europe, top quality managed services and a high-performance IP network, AboveNet is able to offer the most flexible and complete information exchange solutions in the industry.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause or contribute to such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, competition, changes in technology and methods of marketing, and various other factors beyond the Company's control. This also includes such factors as are described from time to time in the SEC reports filed by the Company including the most recently filed Forms S-3, 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K.