Fremont, California - January 23, 2002 - Hurricane Electric, a leading Technical Service Provider, announced today that they will now offer direct connections and colocation in the Chicago area.

"It's the next logical step," said Mike Leber, president of Hurricane Electric. "We offer services on both coasts, so we decided to bring our services to Chicago because it is a centrally located major metropolitan hub."

Hurricane Electric is offering a T3 (45 Mbps) out of Chicago for $4,995 a month as part of their "Welcome to the Windy City" special. Fractional T1's and T3's, T1's, OC3's, OC12's and IP over metropolitan Ethernet providers are also available. A T1 (1.544 Mbps) from Hurricane Electric in Chicago will run $650 a month.

Hurricane Electric's Chicago facility is located at Switch and Data, 427 South La Salle Street, home of the former Western Union building, located across the street from the Chicago Board of Trade and Ameritech Tandem.

Customers that colocate their equipment at Hurricane Electric's Chicago facility will enjoy every amenity they could ask for, including a 24/7 knowledgeable staff, high tech security, HVAC environmental systems, digital surveillance, and conditioned uninterruptible power. The facility is connected via a "meet me" room to Ameritech, AT&T local, Level(3), Qwest and XO Communications and has 3 fiber entry points for increased redundancy to eliminate a single point of failure. A "meet me" room is a space where major providers connect to each other. Established in 1994, Hurricane Electric expanded their network and their facilities in the last year by opening a new colocation facility in Fremont, CA and acquiring Lightning Internet Services in New York this past week. Hurricane Electric now offers services in the New York and Chicago areas along with the Silicon Valley.

Hurricane Electric also offers web hosting plans, ranging from $9.95 to $299.95, to customers internationally including Chicago. A new rate plan for Hurricane Electric web hosting was announced this month to include more traffic and storage. Pricing and information can be found at http://he.net/hosting_prices.html.