U2 PopMart Webcast Gives Visitors Control of Concert Cameras

Press Release (Business Wire) (1997-06-30)

SAN DIEGO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—June 30, 1997—TCG CERFnet

(NASDAQ:TCGI) and MRD New Media Entertainment announced today that they have teamed up to provide Internet connectivity and additional technical coordination for MSN, The Microsoft Network Online Service, Webcast of the U2 PopMart concert.

The July 2 Webcast (http://u2popmart.msn.com), which will begin at 7:00 p.m. EDT, is the most ambitious MSN Webcast to date. U2 fans from all over the globe will not only be able to peer through a live camera focused on Boston’s Foxboro Stadium stage, they will be able to adjust the camera angle or zoom in and out.

MSN has two of the most experienced companies in the industry assisting with the delivery of the Webcast. Los Angeles-based MRD was called in to coordinate the Internet link, which allows site visitors to adjust their view of the concert. TCG CERFnet is providing the T1 line to Foxboro stadium which will be used to transport images from the cameras to viewers around the world.

“The U2 PopMart tour is absolutely spectacular, and we want the quality of the Webcast to reflect that,” said Bob Bejan, executive producer of the Microsoft Network. “Microsoft turned to MRD and CERFnet to meet time-critical connectivity requirements and they did an excellent, thorough job of ensuring that all details of the requirements were met in a remarkably rapid and responsive fashion.”

“With TCG CERFnet’s fiber optic backbone already in place in Boston and across the country and MRD’s experience in highly interactive Webcasts, they were able to deliver the critical last mile in less than a week,” said Pushpendra Mohta, vice president of TCG CERFnet Internet Services. “We feel that the impact of the concert will be well worth the extra effort.”

“Although there are more than 1,000 U2-related Web sites, this is the first official site that directly involves the popular band,” Bejan noted. “U2 represents a rare combination of passion, style and a fearless capacity for innovation.”

Visitors to the U2 PopMart Webcast will be able to adjust the camera angle to see PopMart’s huge McDonald’s-style arch and the giant-size olive and lemon, as well as the drive-in-like screens broadcasting Pop-art cartoons. In addition, they’ll be able to click on a variety of icons to listen to audio clips and view rare photos. There will also be interviews with some of the people involved in making of “POP.”

TCG CERFnet is one of the industry’s most experience ISPs in providing Internet connectivity for the entertainment industry and multinational businesses, has everything in place to ensure that there are no single points of failure.

Every segment of its high-speed backbone and infrastructure is redundant The highly trained engineers who man TCG CERFnet’s triple-redundant Network Operation Centers (NOCs) monitor the backbone around-the-clock and traffic statistics are continuously updated automatically so that potential connectivity problems can be identified and resolved before they affect the delivery of the Webcast.

MRD New Media Entertainment is a Los Angeles-based Internet production company that specializes in full-media Webcasts for entertainment and corporate clients. The company creates and combines Internet technologies to produce live, interactive shows and events for the World Wide Web. For more information about MRD New Media Entertainment, visit www.mrdmedia.com.

TCG CERFnet is the Internet Service business unit of Teleport Communications Group Inc. (NASDAQ:TCGI). TCG is the nation’s oldest and largest provider of competitive local telecommunications services for business. For complete information on TCG CERFnet’s SuperSite
Web Farms and high-speed access to the Internet, contact TCG CERFnet at 888/CERFNET, 619/455-3900, e-mail in…@cerf.net, or visit TCG CERFnet’s Web site at URL: http://www.cerf.net/.

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