CLEC People - April 5, 2001

Rhythms NetConnections (Nasdaq: RTHM) announced that Catherine Hapka, Rhythms' Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, has resigned as an officer and director of the company, effective as of April 2, 2001. Hapka's last day at the company will be May 1, 2001. Steve Stringer, Rhythms' President and Chief Operating Officer, has assumed the responsibilities of CEO and will retain his current title. Stringer, 46, has been Rhythms' President and COO since May 1999. Prior to joining Rhythms, Stringer served in various positions at GE Capital from 1996 to May 1999, most recently as Global Chief Operating Officer of GE Capital IT Solutions. Before that, Stringer served in various positions at Ameridata from 1991 until 1996, the year in which it was acquired by GE Capital.

Williams Communications (NYSE: WCG), a provider of broadband services, announced the appointments of John A. (Ian) Craig, Morgan O'Brien and Julius W. Erving to the company's Board of Directors. Craig brings to the board more than 30 years experience in telecommunications. Most recently, as Nortel's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Craig was responsible for overseeing the development and integration of Nortel Networks marketing strategy with its business objectives and operational priorities. Prior to this role, Craig was president for wireless and carrier solutions, where he was responsible for wireless mobility offerings, central office switching, succession networks, and wireline and wireless portfolios. Craig also serves on the boards of directors for CAE, Antec, TrizecHahn and BCI. O'Brien is vice chairman of Nextel Communications. O'Brien co- founded Nextel in 1987 as Fleet Call, and served as chairman of the board from 1987 to 1996. He has served as vice chairman since 1996. During his tenure with Nextel, O'Brien navigated mergers with four companies and acquired Motorola's radio licenses, allowing Nextel the ability to offer cellular service in the top 50 U.S. markets. From 1986 to 1990, O'Brien served as partner-in-charge of telecommunications at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, an international law firm. Erving is president of The Erving Group and senior vice president of the Orlando Magic professional basketball team. Erving formerly served on the board of directors for LCI Communications and currently serves on the boards of directors for SAKS, Sports Authority Darden Restaurants, and Converse.

BroadRiver Communications announced the addition of Road Runner co-founder Stephen Van Beaver and Cisco Senior Vice President Kevin DeNuccio to its board of directors. Van Beaver was co-founder, and formerly served as senior vice president of operations, for Road Runner, LLC, one of the world's largest broadband service businesses, and a joint venture between AT&T (formerly MediaOne), Time Warner, Advance Newhouse, Compaq, and Microsoft. Before joining the company in June 1998, Van Beaver was corporate vice president of operations and engineering for Internet services at MediaOne where he grew the Internet services business into a national organization with over six regional data centers and a national IP backbone. He has also served as vice president and general manager for Interchange Online Network (a division of AT&T New Media Services) and has held senior management positions in operations and customer care at Shiva and Microfocus (formerly Intersolv Corporation). Kevin DeNuccio is sr. vice president of Worldwide Service Provider Operations, which encompasses all Cisco's field activities including sales, systems engineering and support for the service provider marketplace. The service provider market is one of Cisco's three lines of business that target all telecommunications companies including long distance and local exchange telephone companies, Internet service providers, competitive local exchange carriers, cable and wireless network providers. DeNuccio was previously responsible for Cisco's Worldwide Field Operations including all sales and engineering support organizations to Cisco's sales operations worldwide. He joined Cisco Systems in August 1995 as vice president of volume markets to launch and oversee a new sales and marketing organization that launched Cisco's small-to-medium business strategy. Prior to joining Cisco Systems, DeNuccio was the founder, president and chief executive officer of Bell Atlantic Network Integration, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell Atlantic, with responsibility for all company activities. Previously, he held senior management positions at both Unisys Corporation and Wang Laboratories, as a vice president in their network integration and worldwide channel reseller businesses.

ionex telecommunications announced that it has appointed Gerald (Jerry) Sharp as chief technology officer and Jesse Thompson as vice president of marketing. Sharp will have executive responsibility for the company's short and long-term technology strategy and the management of all technology and architecture planning, development and engineering functions. He has twenty years of telecommunications industry experience, and joins ionex from Pathnet, where he held the position of senior vice president and chief technology officer. Sharp has held senior technology management positions at Intermedia Communications and BellSouth.net, and gained additional experience with U.S. West Communications and the State of Florida Division of Communications. Jesse Thompson will provide executive leadership to the ionex marketing and product management functions. He has extensive experience in product and segment marketing, strategy development, sales management, call center management and general management in a variety of industries. Previously, he was director of marketing integration at Verizon Communications. Thompson has also served as executive vice president of sales and marketing for Phoneby, and brings to ionex experience from NEC America, VMX, GTE and other telecommunications organizations. Both Sharp's and Thompson's duties are effective immediately.

Next Level Communications announced that President and Chief Executive Officer J. Michael Norris has been named to the additional position of Chairman of the Board. He succeeds Pete Keeler, Next Level's co-founder, who had been serving as non-executive Chairman. Keeler will remain a member of the board.

Norstar Communications announced that Louis Di Gregorio has joined the company's management team as Vice President of Network Engineering. Di Gregorio has established a career in network engineering with over twenty years of experience with various telecom and computer companies including Sprint and GE Capital. For the last three years he has been the Vice President of Network Architecture for Universal Broadband Networks, a CLEC with a bundled service offering consisting of local and long distance telephone, wireless Internet, DSL and Dialup Internet in the US and Canada. As the Vice President Di Gregorio was responsible for the development of a carrier grade network to support and integrate Fiber Transport, ATM, IP, Voice, DSL, Wireless and Dialup networks. From 1997 to 1999 he was a Network Engineer for Teligent a CLEC utilizing Point to Multipoint Microwave and ATM technology. Di Gregorio was responsible for the project management of all telecommunications projects within the company. He joined Sprint in their PCS division in 1996 where he held the position of Interconnect Engineer. He was involved in the project management for implementation of the Transmission networks as well as the development of network and emergency disaster planning.

ADTRAN announced that Peter Voetsch has been named Senior Vice President of Operations. In this position, Voetsch will be responsible for all of ADTRAN's supply chain, manufacturing, and out-sourced manufacturing activities. He will also join the company's senior management team that guides business strategy and establishes policy. ADTRAN is a supplier of transmission products for today's expansive telecommunications networks.