FAIRPORT, N.Y. -- PAETEC Holding Corp. today announced the nationwide availability of its Network Firewall service. With regulatory requirements requiring businesses to place additional emphasis on security, PAETEC's Network Firewall solution keeps corporate assets and customer information secure by protecting the customer's network from hacker intrusions, thereby reducing network vulnerability.

Network Firewall services allows internal users to access web pages and e-mail without allowing external users to access computers on the internal network (inside the firewall). Customers can have customized security policies to limit types of inbound and outbound requests.

"PAETEC's Network Firewall service provides companies with unparalleled security without expensive hardware costs," said PAETEC Chief Marketing Officer Jack Baron. "Since the solution is network based, all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic will pass thru the firewall. This is a very compelling solution for customers that would like to reduce their operating and capital expenditures with the flexibility to grow as their business needs change."

PAETEC's Network Firewall solution resides within the PAETEC network, as opposed to the customer premises, and provides firewall protection for all sites at the customer-facing edge of the network, freeing up bandwidth for legitimate traffic. Change management, policy updates, and security patches are completed by PAETEC, alleviating the burden on the customer. Traffic graphing and reporting are available through the company's customer web portal, PAETEC Online.

Once a customer's security solution is configured, PAETEC can use the same configuration to protect all of that customer's remote offices serviced by our network. Since all offices will be managed from one centralized location, the time needed to update new security policies is significantly reduced.

Product Versions

Customers can choose one of the following combinations to meet their specific security needs:

* Network Firewall

* Network Firewall with Web Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware

* Network Firewall with Web Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, and Web URL Filtering

About PAETEC

PAETEC (NASDAQ: PAET) is personalizing business communications for medium and large businesses, enterprise organizations and institutions across the United States. We offer a comprehensive suite of IP, voice, data and Internet services, as well as enterprise communications management software, network security solutions, CPE, and managed services. For more information, visit www.paetec.com.