DOHA, Qatar, March 11 /PRNewswire/ --

- Energy City Qatar, the Region's First Integrated Business and 
Residential hub for the Hydrocarbon Industry Will Connect Businesses to 
Global Markets

- Oil, gas Companies to Benefit From Access to AT&T's Worldwide Network

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced that an AT&T subsidiary, in 
association with Qtel and NavLink, has signed a memorandum of understanding 
with Energy City Qatar (ECQ) to jointly develop and deliver advanced data 
communications services and solutions to the "first-of-its kind" landmark 
business centre in the Middle East.

ECQ is a major US$2.6 billion development to create the Middle
East's first integrated energy and business centre for the oil and gas
industry. With today's announcement, ECQ is moving rapidly to provide its
commercial tenants with the networking expertise, data and voice
telecommunications, Internet Protocol (IP) and Internet, hosting and managed
services needed for companies to do business both locally and globally.

ECQ will build and provide the facilities and infrastructure required to
equip a carrier class Internet data centre (IDC) and a network operations
centre ("NOC") in the Energy City service centre in Qatar. The two centres
will comply with AT&T's and Qtel's standards for these types of facilities.

NavLink, (a company in which AT&T and Qtel both hold a minority
shareholding) will supply network management tools and use both the NOC and
IDC to deliver a variety of AT&T managed and hosting services to the ECQ
tenants. AT&T and Qtel will jointly deliver global and local network IP data
and voice services to Energy City tenants in Qatar.

Today's announcement reflects the continuing focus that AT&T is placing
in the Middle East, where the company has made significant investments in
recent years. AT&T placed its first Middle East global network node in Doha,
in cooperation with Qtel in 2005. Since then, AT&T has developed agreements
to deploy its infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait. AT&T opened its regional headquarters in Dubai in 2006 to meet the
needs of its customers in this emerging and high-growth market.

AT&T provides advanced communications services to global multinational
customers and offers consistent, resilient, standardized IP services to
business customers around the world. These services include IP-based Virtual
Private Networks (VPN), which use the latest Multiprotocol Label Switching
(MPLS) technology, and are complemented by an advanced portfolio of
data-hosting services and leading IP security offerings.

This week AT&T was named by Fortune magazine as among the Top 50 Most
Admired companies in the world for the first time. AT&T placed No. 34 on the
overall World's Most Admired Companies list. Fortune also named AT&T the
World's Most Admired Telecommunications Company.

"AT&T is pleased to be able to play such an important role in this
prestigious, landmark project," said John Gibson president of Business
Development, Middle East and Africa, AT&T Global Business Services. "Today's
announcement is an important opportunity for AT&T to help connect businesses
around the world, using the best networking solutions at its disposal to
benefit this major business centre in the Middle East, one of the world's
fastest growing economies."

Qtel is a major telecommunications service provider of both fixed and
mobile telecommunications in the state of Qatar and is expanding its presence
in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia to become one of the world's top
20 telecommunications companies by 2020. Today's announcement underlines the
strategic investment of resources into consumer wireless, fixed wireless, and
managed data services, the latter serving large and corporate business both
in Qatar and abroad.

"Qtel is delighted to be involved with this very important initiative as
part of our continuous and committed support to Qatar's business community,
represented by this ground breaking project at Energy City." said Dr. Nasser
Marafih, CEO, of Qtel. "Providing local expertise in conjunction with
established partners is a win-win situation for all involved and gives Energy
City Qatar the support it needs on its journey towards being a major business
centre in the Middle East."

ECQ is proud to be associated with Qtel, Qatar's leading
telecommunications company and AT&T -- one of the world's preeminent
telecommunications companies," said Mr. Hesham Al Emadi, Energy City Qatar
CEO. "Joining Qtel and AT&T's advanced telecoms technologies and expertise
will play a major role in connecting companies to global markets and
expertise within the hydrocarbon industry, thus securing Energy City Qatar's
status as the first global hub for companies in this sector."

Laurent Delifer, Co-President & COO of NavLink commented, "NavLink is
keen on working with ECQ on introducing world-class ICT services, hence,
creating more value to ECQ tenants. This is an exciting collaboration and we
are looking forward, with our strategic partners, to enable ECQ to offer
advanced IP-based services to its tenants within the city as well as managed
global connectivity to fulfill their most demanding telecommunications
needs."

Find More Information Online:

    Web Site Links: 
    AT&T Web Site - (http://www.att.com)
    NaviLink Website - (http://www.navlink.com)

    Related Media Kits:
    AT&T's Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network 
    (http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=9659)
 
    Related Releases:
    AT&T to Invest US$1 Billion in Global Network and Services for 
    Multinational Customers in 2008 - 
    (http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25257)

    Related Fact Sheets:
    AT&T VPN Snapshot - http://www.att.com/Common/merger/files/pdf/VPN_Snapshot.pdf

    Technorati Tags: 
    AT&T:(http://www.technorati.com/tag/at&t)
    Middle East:(http://www.technorati.com/tag/middle+east)
    Africa: (http://www.technorati.com/tag/africa)
    John Gibson: (http://www.technorati.com/tag/john+gibson)



About Energy City Qatar (ECQ)

Energy City Qatar (ECQ) is a pioneering development that will be the
Gulf's first oil and gas industry hub. ECQ will be a single point of access
to markets and expertise, the Middle East home for global players in the
hydrocarbon value chain. Envisioned by Gulf Energy, ECQ aims to attract the
industry leaders in Oil & Gas production, IOCs, NOCs, support services, 
infrastructure and downstream activities, shipping and trading, market and 
resource data, intellectual property and energy trading. ECQ has the full 
support of the Qatari Government and aims to lead the way in hydrocarbon 
above ground resource development. ECQ forms part of the major new city 
development, Lusail, which in addition to major business and entertainment 
districts, will be home to up to 200,000 residents. Qatar is the most 
progressive, business friendly and the fastest growing economy in the Middle 
East. Home to the world's third largest natural gas reserves, Qatar has a 
stable and maturing political environment, a free press, and internationally 
recognized regulatory environment. ECQ's lead financial advisor is Gulf 
Finance House, and PFC Energy is its strategic advisor. Its strategic 
partners are Abu Dhabi Investment House and Kuwait Investment Company.

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.
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 Qtel

The Qtel Group today operates in 16 countries in the Middle
East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific through its subsidiary and associate
companies and has successfully grown its total mobile subscriber base from
1.3 million in September 2006 to 16 million in December 2007. The Group's
proportionate subscribers in December 2007 stood at 7 million (2006: 1.1
million subscribers).

About NavLink

NavLink (http://www.navlink.com) is a leading provider of
managed data services for hosting, and enterprise networking solutions to a
strong customer base 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 manages and operates several carrier class data centers in Europe
and the Middle East that are interconnected with AT&T's global network (AGN)
and host AGN nodes. NavLink acts as a service delivery arm for AT&T in the
Middle East and North Africa and works to expand the AGN. AT&T has held a
significant investment in NavLink for a number of years.

(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. For more information, please
review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.att.com/newsroom.

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.