AboveNet Opens New Network Management Center To Manage and Monitor its Extensive Metro Network

NEW YORK , August 24, 2004 – AboveNet, Inc. (ABVT.PK), a premier metro network access provider for businesses, announced today that it will officially open the doors of a new Network Management Center (NMC) located in Herndon, Virginia. The new facility is structured as a consolidated services center for the AboveNet network with the capability to monitor and manage traffic, as well as networked applications performance for clients on a worldwide basis.

The new NMC is a 15,000 square feet facility with space for nearly 60 employees to assume 24-hour a day/ 7 day a week monitoring and performance management responsibility. AboveNet’s NMC is a hub for the surveillance monitoring of the Company’s extensive metro fiber networks, IP network and managed network services. In addition, the NMC orchestrates the installation and maintenance activities for AboveNet’s IP backbone and private wavelength services.

“AboveNet’s metro network is an unmatched asset that has the capability of driving the greatest proliferation of on-net buildings in the industry and already carries traffic for many Fortune 100 businesses,” said Bill LaPerch, president and chief executive officer of AboveNet. “The opening of our new network management center is a great example of investing in our future. This center will allow us to keep pace with the evolving technical needs of our customers.”

AboveNet operates two data centers in Virginia, as well as others in New York and San Jose, maintains a high-capacity IP network throughout the United States, undersea capacity to Europe and its premier metro network in key metropolitan areas that has become the company’s hallmark.

About AboveNet, Inc.
AboveNet, Inc. is a leading provider of integrated access services to 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 networks 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-.