EMPLOYEES TO STAFF PHONES FOR TELETHON

NOTE: Please post for employees who don't have e-mail access.

Thousands of employees are volunteering to help with the world's largest

fundraising telethon tonight in support of the victims of last week's

terrorist attacks.

Verizon expects more than 6,000 employees across the country -- in eight

call centers and a LiveSource operator center -- to answer many of the 1.7

million donation calls anticipated.

We're also helping to meet the communications needs of the networks

broadcasting the event, and we're working with WorldCom and AT&T to

facilitate long-distance connections for people calling to pledge a

donation. Yahoo, IBM, Capital One and a host of other companies are

participating in this event.

The live two-hour event, called 'America: A Tribute to Heroes,' will be

simulcast by at least 27 television networks from 9-11 p.m. EDT, 8-10 p.m.

CDT and 7-9 p.m. Mountain Time. It will be rebroadcast on the West Coast

from 9-11 p.m. PDT and in Hawaii from 8-10 p.m. The program will been seen

by a projected audience of 35 million people. A who's who of

entertainers--Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Faith Hill and others--have agreed to

participate. The event will raise funds for the September 11th Fund,

earmarked for the relief effort.

Chairman and co-CEO Chuck Lee said that Verizon employees have responded

generously to the relief efforts in support of the victims of the Sept. 11

terrorist attacks. "For us, this has been a call to duty," Lee said. "And

tonight, thousands of our employees will answer that call one more time, as

they volunteer their time and their expertise to help our country in this

time of need."

Verizon volunteered to help answer phones for the telethon just three days

ago. We've limited the number of centers involved to ensure that our

participation could be ramped up quickly and easily and to avoid any

additional strain on our network in disaster-affected areas. Participating

centers are located in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine, Ohio,

Texas and Vermont.

Employees are encouraged to watch the broadcast, which is expected to

generate unprecedented call volumes. You can pledge via the telethon or you

may continue to send your checks directly to the September 11th Fund. No

matter how you choose to give, you must register your gift by Oct. 13 to

qualify for the 3:1 Foundation match. Contributions can be registered in

one of the following ways:

-- ON-LINE: http://foundation.verizon.com/v2

-- PHONE: (866) 247-2687

-- FAX: (978) 794-9111 (Provide name, Social Security #, address, phone #,

pledge amount.)

Remember, the Foundation matches individual contributions up to $2,500 per

employee. Your gift of $250 becomes a $1,000 donation with the 3:1 match.

To get the latest on employee contributions or to make an online

contribution, go to: http://eWeb.Verizon.com/foundation/disaster.htm or

http://foundation.verizon.com/sept11.shtml

Note: Because so many employees want to contribute, there have been some

delays in reaching the Web sites. If you can't access one of the sites,

HELP VICTIMS

CRISIS UPDATE, SEPT. 20: HEROIC ACTIONS RESTORE SERVICE AND HELP VICTIMS

While teams of Verizon employees continue to work around the clock to

restore service to thousands of customers in lower Manhattan, employees from

New York to Hawaii and everywhere in between have moved quickly and

generously to provide support to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist

attacks.

"Our employees have performed valiantly. To them this was a call to duty,

and our people got to work right away," said President and Co-CEO Ivan

Seidenberg during an interview last night on CCN's Moneyline. "They're all

patriots and they're dedicated to our business."

Verizon today announced that it will donate call center and

telecommunications services for the national AMERICA Telethon planned for

Friday evening at 9:00 EST. The event will air simultaneously on all four

major TV networks to raise contributions for disaster relief. While details

are still being worked out and will be communicated on Friday, we expect to

support the telethon with approximately 4,000 Verizon employee volunteers at

call positions in eight Consumer Service Call Centers and one Livesource

Call Center in nine cities from across our footprint. Coordination of

volunteer staffing is being handled locally by each call center involved.

Employees from across our footprint are donating generously to the disaster

relief funds established by the Verizon Foundation. As of Sept. 20:

-- More than 4,600 Verizon, Verizon Wireless and U.S.-based Vodafone

employees have made donations.

-- Contributions to the funds are averaging more than $150,000 a day.

-- With the Foundation's 3-to-1 match of individual contributions, the

total amount raised in just the first week is more than $2.7 million.

In addition to donations, employees have organized various volunteer

activities. A group of eBusiness employees assisted in creating a DNA

database to help the New York police at Pier 94 with identifying victims.

Employees also have collected supplies to aid rescue workers, delivering

hundreds of hard hats, gloves and glasses at the New York site.

Employees are encouraged to send the Foundation news of their volunteer

efforts via the following e-mail address: verizon.foundation@verizon.com.

Employees interested in making a donation to the relief fund or in volunteer

opportunities can find information on the Foundation's web site at

http://eweb.verizon.com/foundation/disaster.htm.

The tragedy also has had a personal impact on employees from across our

company. On the Share Your Stories page on the eWeb home page, employees

have posted more than 145 thoughtful and emotional stories about how the

events have affected them personally. To read the stories or post your own,

go to the eWeb at http://eweb.verizon.com and click on Share Your Stories in

the column to the right.

"We have so many of our employees who had cousins and nieces and nephews and

brothers and sisters involved in the World Trade Center attack," said

Seidenberg while discussing the loss of three Verizon employees and the

broader impact on the Verizon family with Moneyline. "The tragedy this city

has suffered is almost impossible to describe no matter how hard we try to

do so. But certainly uplifting to everyone is the effort and the work that a

number of companies and their employees have put in to restore the area."

The employees working at or near Ground Zero in New York continue to make

significant progress as they assess and repair the damage to our facilities

at 140 West Street as quickly as possible. Among the progress we've made in

the last few days was:

-- Two DMS 100 switches and one 5 ESS switch are now operational.

-- 50 percent of our broadband capacity is back on line to handle traffic

between our central offices in lower Manhattan.

-- 12 bypass cables are being run out the 5th floor windows at West Street,

down several blocks and into area manholes where we are splicing them with

existing cables.

Overall, we expect it will take two to three weeks to restore essential

services to the more than 10,000 businesses and 35,000 individual homes

affected across lower Manhattan. In the interim, Verizon is providing free

calling within New York City on the installed base of 450 pay phones in the

area and free calls across the country for up to three minutes on the

approximate 250 phones mounted on trailers in the area.

FCC chairman Michael Powell visited Ground Zero yesterday and toured 140

West Street. In a statement issued today, he said, "I want to particularly

commend Verizon whose facilities were particularly impacted by the disaster

for the hard work, dedication and Herculean efforts undertaken to

substantially repair equipment and reroute traffic where cables have been

destroyed to get their service back on line. All those involved in the

arduous and trying task of maintaining the system deserve our praise and

gratitude for their dedication."

"Frankly, the entire industry has worked with us to make this happen,"

During a press conference Monday, Ivan Seidenberg credited the efforts of

thousands of employees and the dedication of Verizon's leadership team for

enabling the New York Stock Exchange to reopen for business this morning.

Seidenberg and Larry Babbio, vice chairman and president - Telecom, detailed

the monumental service restoration Verizon has achieved since the

catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Center last Tuesday.

Among the statistics they cited:

-- Verizon crews have reconstructed a little over 2 million circuits,

primarily data circuits for the New York Stock Exchange and the major

brokerage houses.

-- Among those circuits were more than 14,000 of the 15,000 circuits that

feed the NYSE.

-- About 1.5 million lines in the area have been re-routed.

-- And about 450 pay phones are now in service - with local calls free in

the immediate area - including 250 pay phones on wheels trucked in to serve

workers at Ground Zero.

Even with communications capacity not fully restored, Seidenberg said our

facilities were handling a record volume of trading at the NYSE this

morning.

The opening of the exchange was a major milestone in the recovery effort,

Seidenberg said, a signal to the world that the U.S. is once more open for

business. Now Verizon's focus will shift to restoring service for the

remaining businesses and residences in the area.

About 200,000 customers in the area were served by the 140 West Street

office, across the street from the devastation of the twin towers. The

47-story building next to the central office also collapsed, damaging our

building and burying an underground communications vault under tons of

debris.

Seidenberg said the fact that our central office is still standing amid the

ruins is testimony to the strength of the 1920s-era structure. "We joke that

it's built like the pyramids," Seidenberg said.

Traffic that could be re-routed from the building has been, Seidenberg said.

And although Verizon couldn't begin work in the building until today because

of potential environmental and structural hazards, service is already being

provided to some customers.

Babbio said service would be restored for most customers on a temporary

basis within the next seven days. Permanent repairs will take place more

gradually, over a period of time, he said, and Verizon will be responding to

service requests from residents and businesses as they return to the area.

Seidenberg pointed out that the area in which we are working is still

comparable to a war zone, with no commercial power, tons of debris and

choking dust and ash. He said there are up to 3,000 Verizon employees

working feverishly in these conditions to fully restore service.

In answer to a question from the media, Seidenberg said Verizon has

insurance to cover costs resulting from the last Tuesday's attacks and the

federal government is also providing funds to aid the recovery. The full

cost impact will take time to assess, he said.

In answer to a question about the impact on the service quality we deliver,

Seidenberg said. "I think our efforts during this crisis prove that when it

During his broadcast voice mail update Friday, President and Co-CEO Ivan

Seidenberg said there are six employees still unaccounted for in the

aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks this week.

"Although we are still hopeful, we must prepare ourselves for the worst,"

Seidenberg said. "We have been in regular contact with the families of these

individuals and offered any support they need."

In a previous update, Seidenberg acknowledged the tremendous concern over

employees in the affected areas and said, "We will let the rest of the

Verizon family know the status of our employees as quickly as we can."

In terms of network restoration, an army of employees is working around the

clock in southern Manhattan to get the New York Stock Exchange and other

major financial services firms back on line.

The stock exchange plans to re-open on Monday, a significant sign that the

nation is recovering and moving ahead. Getting the exchange back into

operation is a national priority for the U.S. Government and therefore is a

priority for Verizon, Seidenberg said.

Pending further restoration and testing this weekend, Verizon believes

service can be restored as much as 90 percent for the New York Stock

Exchange by the time the opening bell rings on Monday. Seidenberg said the

cooperation of equipment vendors, the major long-distance carriers and

competitive local exchange carriers has been instrumental in the progress so

far.

Verizon has about a half-dozen switching hubs in and around the financial

district. The Broad Street office, the primary serving office for the stock

exchange, is on emergency power at this point, but functioning. A concerted

effort is under way to restore service at 140 West Street, another switching

office that provides service for the stock exchange. The office is across

the street from the World Trade Center and was heavily damaged during the

catastrophic events on Tuesday.

In addition to switching facilities, our underground plant is also a major

concern, having experienced the equivalent of several small earthquakes as

the twin towers and other buildings collapsed.

Complicating recovery efforts is the overall devastation in the area,

including leaking gas lines, absence of commercial power and unstable

buildings.

While the landline recovery efforts continue, Verizon Wireless has restored

nine of ten cell sites that were damaged by using a mix of permanent and

portable facilities.

At the Pentagon, the major switch we maintain for the massive building has

been restored to nearly normal service levels. The damage at the Pentagon

did not affect service in the city and the surrounding northern Virginia

suburbs.

Across the Verizon footprint, hundreds of employees have volunteered their

help in the recovery effort. "We appreciate your willingness to jump in,"

Seidenberg said. The company is developing force plans to bring in

additional workers as necessary.

In response to employees' desire to contribute funds that will aid victims

and their families (including families of Verizon employees), the Verizon

Foundation has announced a special disaster-relief incentive program. The

program will match employee contributions three-to-one up to $2,500. Details

are on the eWeb home page.

The Foundation also announced donations of $1 million to the New York Police

and Fire Widows and Orphans Fund; $100,000 to the American Red Cross in

Washington, D.C.; and $25,000 to the American Red Cross in Somerset, Pa.,

where the fourth hijacked jetliner crashed. Verizon is providing both

wireless and wireline facilities for emergency workers at the Pennsylvania

crash site.

Seidenberg said he was "extraordinarily grateful" to Verizon's employees for

their response to the tragedy, both on the job and in their eagerness to

help in other ways.

"More than ever, people are counting on us ... to get our nation back to

normal," Seidenberg said. "I'm proud of all of you, and I know we won't let