Crown Castle Installs Europe's First 3G Base Station Equipment

Warwick, March 22, 2001 - Crown Castle International, the world's leading provider of wireless transmission infrastructure, in conjunction with NEC, installed the first Node B for Manx Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of BT, as part of the Isle of Man 3G project. The installation is a key milestone in the development of the world's first 3G network and represents the first installation of its kind in Europe.

The Node B is a crucial step in third generation communications becoming a reality, heralding the evolution of telephony from speech based to include multi-media based services.

These services will include the ability to hold 'face-to-face' conversations and with the 'always-on' feature of UMTS, you have a world of information at your fingertips when and where you need it.

Contracted by Manx Telecom to provide site infrastructure and by NEC for site installation, and assistance in the commissioning, integration and optimisation of the Node B's and Switch, Crown Castle has played a key role in all stages of the project so far.

The Node B, installed by Crown Castle at the end of December 2000, is a significant step forward in base station technology. 2G technologies are based upon sharing of radio resource in a very structured way, with the same allocation of radio resource to the users each time. 3G technology, however, and more specifically, the Node B, gives greater flexibility to the allocation of the valuable radio resource to the end user.

Bob Giles, president and COO, Crown Castle International, said: "We are very proud and excited to be taking the lead in realising the world's next generation of communications networks. This network will be the most advanced network of its kind in the world and will demonstrate the true ability of third generation communications."

Mark Briers, director of UMTS at Manx Telecom, said: "The installation of the Node B is a significant step in the networks development. Its arrival demonstrates the advanced stage we are at in our implementation. This news keeps us very much at the forefront in moving third generation mobile telephony forward and supports our goal of seeing the network go live shortly."

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Note to Editors

Crown Castle International
Crown Castle International Corp (NASDAQ: TWRS) along with its subsidiaries ("Crown Castle") engineers, deploys, owns and operates technologically advanced shared wireless infrastructure, including extensive networks of towers and rooftops as well as analogue and digital audio and television broadcast transmission systems. Crown Castle offers near-universal broadcast coverage in the United Kingdom and significant wireless communications coverage to 68% of the top 100 United States markets, more than 95 per cent of the UK population and more than 92 percent of the Australian population.

Proforma for all closed and previously announced transactions, Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 13,000 wireless communication towers internationally. Crown Castle UK Limited, a subsidiary of Crown Castle International Corp, operates more than 6,400 sites across the UK. Broadcast customers in the UK include the BBC, ONdigital, Virgin Radio and talkSPORT.

www.crowncastle.com

MANX Telecom
Manx Telecom was formed in 1987 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of BT. The company holds the licence to run both the fixed and mobile network on the Isle of Man, a successful offshore finance centre which currently enjoys the fastest-growing GDP in Europe. Manx Telecom also has a high quality Internet services portfolio and is a key player in the Isle of Man Government's strategy to position the island as the leading offshore e-commerce centre in the world.

www.worldsfirst3g.com

NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialised needs of its customers in the key computer, network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices.

NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs more than 150,000 people world-wide and saw net sales of 4,991 billion Yen (approx. US$48 billion) in fiscal year 1999-2000. For further information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec-global.com.

Press Contacts

Stephen Arnold
Communications Manager
Tel: 01926 416 870
Mob: 01926 416 673
stephen.arnold@ngridwireless.com

Manx Telecom
Paul Doran
Tel: 020 7 345 3056
paul.doran@uk.ogilvypr.com

NEC
Uzma Hasan
or Carolyn Owen
Tel: 020 8 971 6442
EuroPR
UHasan@EuroPRGroup.com
COwen@EuroPRGroup.com