AT&T Wins Multimillion Dollar Networking Contract from Learning Care Group

AT&T Networking Solution to Serve 700 Additional Learning Care Group Locations

Novi, Michigan.-AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has announced a three-year multimillion dollar networking contract with Learning Care Group, Inc., one of the nation’s leading providers of child care and preschool educational services.

Under the terms of the agreement, AT&T will expand its current wide area network (WAN) services to integrate 700 additional sites into Learning Care Group’s network. The 700 new sites will include 650 locations for its subsidiaries, La Petite Academy and Montessori Unlimited, and another 50 locations for another subsidiary, Children’s Courtyard. The expanded network will serve a total of 1,200 sites across the United States.

With headquarters in Novi, Learning Care Group provides early education and care services to children from the age of 6 weeks to 12 years under its umbrella of brands: The Children’s Courtyard, Childtime Learning Centers, La Petite Academy, Montessori Unlimited and Tutor Time Child Care/Learning Centers.

AT&T currently provides DSL access to AT&T’s Private Frame Relay Network at more than 350 Learning Care Group locations around the country. The network expansion project will bring DSL capabilities to the 700 new locations and will provide them with secure, high speed online connectivity. The high-bandwidth capability will enable the new locations to communicate with the other Learning Care Group sites and will help the company manage and process a higher volume of business-performance data, such as center-based human resources and financials.

With the increased network capacity, Learning Care Group will provide La Petite Academy, Montessori Unlimited and Children’s Courtyard with Web-based applications that will enable them to better serve staff, children and families.

“Our goal is to leverage AT&T’s networking expertise to deliver a common set of Web-based applications across all of our locations to make them the most technologically advanced in the child care industry,” said Khris Hruska, director of technology for Learning Care Group. “AT&T’s ability to quickly scale capabilities to meet our growing needs make this a great fit.”

Under the contract, AT&T will also provide long distance voice services to the new locations and local service at sites within AT&T’s local service footprint. AT&T will consolidate the company’s voice services by using its industry-leading AT&T Business Network (ABN), an integrated offer that unifies multiple communications needs into a single contract with a single bill, which provides discounts across all services. A significant advantage of ABN is its eServicing capabilities, which are provided by the award-winning AT&T BusinessDirect® portal, a Web-based tool.

Using the AT&T BusinessDirect portal, authorized employees can increase Learning Care Group’s internal business efficiencies by using a secure online portal to manage and monitor their network, create and track trouble tickets, manage account structures and pay their bills and implement network service orders.

AT&T also provides hosting services for the company’s external Web sites, internal intranet and Web-based applications from one of 36 AT&T Internet Data Centers around the world.