http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/200805271105PR_NEWS_USPR_____AQTU521.htm

Gulf Finance House Signs Strategic Alliance With AT&T and NavLink

PR Newswire

MANAMA, Bahrain, May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has announced that Gulf Finance House (GFH), originator of industry-specific economic infrastructure initiatives across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has a strategic alliance with AT&T and NavLink, a company in which AT&T has an equity holding.

The relationship will result in AT&T’s advanced telecommunications infrastructure technology, design and implementation know-how being made available to commercial tenants across GFH’s Energy Cities and developing Telecom Cities. Energy City Qatar and the Telecom City in Mumbai will be among the first to benefit from access to AT&T’s global network. This agreement builds on the memorandum of understanding that was announced by AT&T and NavLink with Energy City Qatar in March.

This announcement underlines GFH’s commitment to aggregate the very best partners in its delivery of cutting-edge Energy, IT and Telecom Cities worldwide. Facilities will be built at each location to house the infrastructure required to equip a carrier-class Internet data centre (IDC) and a local network operations centre (NOC). Accordingly, commercial tenants will enjoy access to the latest in reliable networking infrastructure that conforms to AT&T’s uncompromisingly high standards. AT&T will work with local network providers to deliver global and local network services for the tenants of these developments.

In the MENA region AT&T and NavLink will together deliver and maintain the network management tools and use both the NOCs and IDCs to provide the complete range of world-class AT&T-managed hosting services to the GFH developments’ commercial tenants.

GFH is committed to providing the best telecom, wireless and data services to the future tenants of their Energy Cities series and its passion for delivering environments that will attract the biggest names in the global energy sector.

“Our alliance with GFH and its pioneering projects in the region constitute a huge step forward in our support to the ever-growing demand of high-end communications infrastructure in the Middle East, North Africa and India,” said John Gibson, president of AT&T Business Development for Middle East and North Africa. “Energy Cities are the ideal vehicle for our objectives in the region, and AT&T is pleased to play such an important role in these prestigious economic infrastructure projects.”

Peter Panayiotou, acting CEO of GFH said, “We are committed to creating world-class facilities in all our Energy Cities, and this can be achieved by choosing the very best partners to support our vision. IT and communications infrastructure is increasingly acknowledged as the backbone of all commercial enterprises, therefore we have chosen world leaders, AT&T and NavLink, to complement our ambitions.”

About Gulf Finance House

Founded in 1999, Gulf Finance House has grown rapidly to become one of the most respected investment banks in the Middle East region in terms of the quality and innovation of its product offerings. Over an eight-year period Gulf Finance House has successfully launched economic infrastructure development projects and investments with an aggregate end value exceeding US$12 billion and received numerous awards for its innovative approach to Islamic banking and finance. Its shares are actively traded on the London Stock Exchange (GDR), the Kuwait Stock Exchange, the Bahrain Stock Exchange and the Dubai Financial Market. 2007 was the most successful year in the banks’ history, closing with a net profit of US$ 340 million, an increase of 61% compared to the previous year.

Reflecting its international reputation, Gulf Finance House has won numerous local and international awards, such as “Best Investment Bank” for three years in a row in 2005, 2006 and 2007, awarded by The Banker Middle East, “Bank of the Year 2006” awarded by the Arabian Business Magazine and “Best Islamic Real Estate Finance House” awarded by Euromoney.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates, AT&T operating companies, are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. Among their offerings are the world’s most advanced IP-based business communications services and the nation’s leading wireless, high speed Internet access and voice services. In domestic markets, AT&T is known for the directory publishing and advertising sales leadership of its Yellow Pages and YELLOWPAGES.COM organizations, and the AT&T brand is licensed to innovators in such fields as communications equipment. As part of its three-screen integration strategy, AT&T is expanding its TV entertainment offerings. In 2008, AT&T again ranked No. 1 on Fortune magazine’s World’s Most Admired Telecommunications Company list and No. 1 on America’s Most Admired Telecommunications Company list. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com.

About NavLink

NavLink (http://www.navlink.com) is a leading provider of managed data services, managed hosting services, and managed enterprise networking solutions to medium and large enterprises in over 17 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Founded in 1996, NavLink has built a strong reputation by delivering state-of-the-art business and technical consulting, enterprise networking, enterprise hosting, systems integration, and managed services. NavLink enjoys deep, strategic relationships with leading telecommunications carriers.

NavLink operates a carrier class data center in Nice, France part of AT&T’s 38 global data centers. NavLink acts as AT&T’s service delivery arm for enterprise customers in the Middle East and Africa. AT&T is a strategic investor in NavLink.

(C) 2008 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Note: This AT&T news release and other announcements are available as part of an RSS feed at http://www.att.com/rss. For more information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.att.com/newsroom.

SOURCE AT&T Inc.

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