AboveNet Unveils PushMedia Optical Network for the Media and Entertainment Industry

Private fiber optic network connects studios and post-production sites to enable secure, reliable delivery of content

NEW YORK, December 7, 2004 – AboveNet, Inc., a premier metro network access provider for businesses, today launched the AboveNet PushMedia Services, designed to meet the needs of the entire production chain in the film and broadcast industries. AboveNet PushMedia Services provide a dedicated, private fiber optic network that directly connects between the major studios and the post-production.

By providing high-speed connections to speed up editing cycles, the AboveNet PushMedia Services enable media companies to reduce time and costs for their production. AboveNet has targeted virtually all of the key contributors in the production chain, including major studios and productions in Burbank, Century City, Culver City, Hollywood, the San Fernando Valley, New York, London, and the San Francisco Bay area.

“AboveNet is ideally positioned in key metro networks to support the media and entertainment industry in the most critical locations,” said Bill LaPerch President and CEO of AboveNet. “Our PushMedia Services, coupled with our strategic partner Sohonet, enable the most important players around the globe to work together as a community more efficiently and cost-effectively,” LaPerch said.

Above Net already directly serves many of the top media and entertainment companies, including top studios and production companies, as well as Sohonet clients in London, New York and Los Angeles. AboveNet is a major supplier of dedicated media network for Sohonet. Sohonet provides a fully managed, secure and flexible international service, enabling all Sohonet customers to communicate seamlessly, predictably, and securely with each other, bringing significant added value for AboveNet clients.

More than 400 major feature films are produced each year in the U.S. alone, and virtually all of them require transferring massive digital content among multiple production, distribution, and marketing partners. Until now, much of that content was hand carried or shipped instead of being sent via network.

Some of the key issues preventing entertainment companies from using high-speed networks are:

• Lack of secure, private point-to-point fiber networks that run directly between the key locations of their production partners.
• The inability of most carriers to support large bursts of volume that may range from 10 megabits to 10 gigabits per second.
• The inflexibility of most telecom carriers in requiring multi-year commitments rather than offering on-demand network bandwidth to match shooting schedules.
• The need for key safeguards to ensure intellectual property protection and disaster recovery.

When supplied to a strategic value added partner such as Sohonet, AboveNet PushMedia Services play a significant role in serving the key technology needs for global content distribution within the entertainment community, including:

• Fast, flexible provisioning of network services.
• Support for easy-to-use Ethernet connections that do not require specialized expertise.
• On-demand network availability and tailored services to transfer digital dailies between field and production sites.
• Support for virtually any software or media file formats, from Quicktime through SDI video, OMFi, to 4k DPX files.
• Network management and disaster recovery expertise.
• Service level agreements and support tailored to the needs of media companies.

About AboveNet, Inc.
AboveNet, Inc. is a premier metro network access provider for businesses . 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 in both 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.

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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 AboveNet, Inc. including the most recently filed Forms S-3 and 8-K.