GOVERNMENT

PORTLAND, OR -- Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q), the broadband communications company, announced today that it has been awarded a $60 million, four-year communications-services contract with the State of Oregon. This new agreement was awarded for a variety of communications services --data, video and voice -- that will be used by state, county and city governments, as well as K-12 schools and state-funded universities. Qwest will be the primary data-networking provider for more than 5,000 locations around the state. "Qwest continues to win contracts from federal, state and local government agencies because these institutions realize the value of Qwest's network reliability and performance," said Joel Arnold, executive vice president of global business markets for Qwest. "The majority of public-sector organizations that sign agreements with Qwest ultimately purchase additional services from Qwest because we exceed their expectations in the delivery and performance of the original solution." Qwest currently is executing on a wide variety of communications services contracts with state and local governments as well as colleges and universities across the United States. For example, Qwest was selected to enable high-speed access to Arizona's 228 public school districts; build a digital voice, video and data network to provide high-speed links to state offices and schools in all 64 Colorado counties; and supply high-speed Internet access to public schools throughout South Dakota and New Mexico. Qwest also is providing a variety of statewide network services in Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Tennessee. Qwest also recently announced that it is providing the world's most powerful fiber-optic network with capacity of 40 gigabits per second -- capable of transferring the entire contents of the public Internet within two hours -- for the National Science Foundation Distributed Terascale Facility program. The Qwest-built network will allow some of the world's most prestigious researchers to share information and try to solve complex scientific problems such as life-threatening illnesses and global warming. For more information visit www.qwest.com