Excite@Home Introduces the Industry's Fastest Native IP Optical Backbone in North America

15,000 Miles of Lit Fiber Allows @Work to Provide Enterprise-Class Internet Services to Businesses in Time for the Holiday Season

REDWOOD CITY-- November 3, 1999-- Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM), a global media company, today introduced the industry's fastest native end-to-end IP-based backbone in North America. With 15,000 miles of lit fiber, @Work, a division of Excite@Home, provides enterprise-class Internet services (T1 to OC-3, DSL, and Hybrid Fiber Coax customer connections) to companies looking to bolster Internet connectivity or migrate from private to VPN networks.

The deployment of this backbone facility, which utilizes Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM), represents a 100-fold increase in Excite@Home's backbone capacity and initially enables the company to support up to five million broadband users. Earlier this year, Excite@Home and AT&T; announced plans to create the network. (See related release -- @Home Network to create Internet Backbone [ http://www.home.net/news/pr_990105_01.html ]).

"This backbone facility demonstrates our commitment to providing business customers with the most advanced, reliable bandwidth available," said Don Hutchison, senior vice president and general manager, @Work division of Excite@Home. "Together with Cisco, we're not only offering our direct customers superior performance but also extending our backbone facility to other service providers on a wholesale basis."

As a certified Cisco Powered Network, Excite@Home's 5Gbps, Tier 1 fiber-optic IP network offers unparalleled throughput and reliability for the most demanding business applications. By directly using dual OC-48 channels over every major hub in its nationwide infrastructure, @Work enterprise customer data takes the fastest most efficient path to its destination. The network also incorporates physical redundancy and self-healing capabilities to offer true fault tolerance for business-critical connectivity. With zero packet loss as its objective, @Work is poised to deliver state-of-the art bandwidth to all of its business customers in both wholesale and retail markets.

"This announcement is not only a milestone for Excite@Home, but also a significant benefit to companies who are looking for cost-effective, reliable access to run their businesses," said Milo Medin, Senior VP Engineering & CTO, Excite@Home. "The deployment of our backbone is the first phase in an on-going initiative to continue to scale our capacity in order to provide and support world-class broadband services for five million broadband users throughout North America."

@Work provides a range of services needed for businesses who are looking to bolster their networks in time for this year's holiday season. For web-centric and enterprise-class companies, @Work offers wholesale backbone services at DS3, OC3 and OC12 connection speeds. These services are complemented by industry-leading peering agreements that provide access to all major carriers. According to Dataquest, online holiday spending is expected to triple this year and surpass $12.2 billion. @Work offers the bandwidth needed to ensure businesses are equipped to handle the increased network activity.

In addition to offering superior bandwidth, @Work also specializes in helping businesses set up true fault-tolerant Internet connections through @Work's multihoming service. Multihoming provides a cost-effective and manageable means for an organization to establish two unique Internet connections through two ISPs. Connection reliability and performance are raised significantly by providing both carrier and circuit redundancy.

"This deployment further strengthens our alliance with Excite@Home in delivering New World services with a combination of their world-class IP optical backbone and Cisco's networking expertise," said Larry Lang, vice president of service provider marketing for Cisco.

About @Work
@Work, Excite@Home's business-to-business division, is the premier provider of e-Business bandwidth, information and web services. @Work provides the broadest range of dedicated high-speed internetworking access, personalized business information, business applications and outsourced Web infrastructure. @Work competes with Frontier Corporation (Nasdaq: GBLX), GTE Internetworking (NYSE:GTE), Level 3 (Nasdaq: LVLT), MCI/WorldCom (Nasdaq: WCOM), Psinet (Nasdaq: PSIX) Sprint (NYSE: FON) and Qwest (Nasdaq: QWST).

About Excite@Home
Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) is a global media company based in Redwood City, Calif. Through the company's narrowband portal, Excite (www.excite.com), and broadband services @Home and @Work, the company uniquely offers consumers content and interactive services across both narrowband and broadband. The rich media advertising and database marketing solutions of Enliven (www.enliven.com) and MatchLogic (www.matchlogic.com) offer advertisers highly targeted interactive marketing and reporting services across all platforms of delivery. Leveraging the high-speed, always-on attributes of cable, Excite@Home empowers unique multimedia applications that go beyond current Web experiences. The company will combine the Excite brand -- one of the best-known names on the Internet with 70 percent recognition among Web users -- with the @Home broadband service's broad distribution, a worldwide footprint of 67 million cable homes, to deliver on its vision of "All Band, All Device, All the Time."

For more investor information about Excite@Home, please call our stockholder services hotline at 1.888.924.9248.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbors created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include statements relating to the introduction of the industry's fastest native IP-based optical backbone in North America. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of factors, including @Work's ability to provide the most advanced, reliable bandwidth available; @Work's ability to meet the goal of zero packet loss; Excite@Home's ability to achieve subscriber growth goals; agreements with and dependence on the actions of our cable partners; ability to generate revenue from Internet advertising agreements; and ability to continue to attract traffic to our web sites. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described in Excite@Home's filings with the SEC. Excite@Home assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.