Atreus Systems and Innovatia Partner Through LivingLAB™ Agreement

Atreus Systems' delivery of IP services accelerated by
working with Innovatia, Aliant Telecom and Prexar

SANTA CLARA, CA and ST. JOHN, NB, October 9, 2001 - Atreus Systems™, Inc., a leading developer of intelligent broadband service creation and delivery platforms for service providers and carriers, and Innovatia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aliant (TSE:AIT) and one of Canada's leading research and innovation companies for broadband Internet-Protocol (IP) applications, announced today they have signed a LivingLAB™ agreement. Under this agreement Innovatia and Atreus will work together to accelerate the development of next-generation services by accessing Innovatia's development centers operated in Atlantic Canada and in New England through Prexar, Aliant's US-based Internet Service Provider (ISP). Atreus will also have access to Aliant Telecom's network and systems to validate their custom and generic service drivers within a "real-world" environment.

As the research and development arm within the Aliant group of companies, Innovatia accelerates the development and deployment of new products and services by working hand-in-hand with customers, employees, and partners - a unique approach that generates real market learning in the emerging networked multimedia industry. The LivingLAB environment is enabled by development centers located throughout Atlantic Canada and in New England, where partners such as Atreus conduct product design, development testing and verification.

"Through this alliance, it is clear that Atreus and Innovatia understand that it takes more than technology by itself to succeed in today's market," said Ron Westfall, Principal Analyst, Broadband Infrastructure for competitive response solutions firm, Current Analysis. "It is also about testing products in a real-world service provider environment so that customers gain a better understanding of how solutions are really going to work and are then fine-tuned to meet market requirements."

"We are fortunate to have found a partner that shares our vision of creating and delivering offerings that provide customers with value-add services across IP connections, delivered on a self-provisional, always-on model with the ability to choose personalized services on their device of choice," said Doug Bellinger, co-founder and Vice President of R&D, Atreus Systems. "The LivingLAB agreement will allow us to validate these products and services in a real-world environment."

"Atreus Systems has proven they are a leader in providing solutions to address many of the major challenges facing service providers who wish to bring revenue-generating applications and services to their markets," said Bob Neal, President of Innovatia. "We look forward to working with Atreus and sharing our telecommunications perspective on how best to develop and integrate their products while offering the greatest benefit to service providers and customers."

About Atreus Systems
Atreus Systems™ is a leading developer of intelligent broadband service creation and delivery platforms for service providers and carriers. The company's proven software solutions enable service providers and carriers to increase profitability per customer by creating and delivering customized, bundled IP, application and content services over broadband networks. Atreus Systems, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is a privately held company financed by leading telecom venture capital firms SOFTBANK Venture Capital, Blueprint Ventures, and Skypoint Capital. For more information, visit the company's web site at http://www.atreuscorp.com/index.htm or call .

About Innovatia and Aliant
Headquartered in Atlantic Canada, Innovatia focuses on designing and commercializing Internet-based innovations. Through its base of highly skilled professionals, Innovatia accelerates the design, development and sale of applications to service providers worldwide through the LivingLAB innovation, research and development approach. Using IP technology, Innovatia provides a variety of advanced Internet-based open standard services for governments, enterprises and service providers, including interactive television, e-business solutions as well as Web-based knowledge services. For more information about Innovatia please visit http://www.innovatia.net/.

Innovatia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aliant Inc. (TSE:AIT), one of Canada's top high-tech companies. Aliant provides integrated communications and IT solutions through subsidiaries operating worldwide. By combining industry-leading expertise from across the group of companies, Aliant utilizes the Aliant Premium™ Model to deliver unique, end-to-end solutions to customers. With 10,000 employees and a market capitalization of approximately $4.5 billion, Aliant ranks in the top 100 publicly traded companies in the country. Please visit http://www.aliant.ca/ for more information about Aliant.