Recent VCNet acquisition makes ISWest the #1 Internet provider in Ventura County.

Agoura Hills, California (September 23, 2002) - ISWest, announced today that on August 1, 2002, ISWest of Agoura Hills, CA and VCNet of Camarillo, CA completed a merger of historic proportion making ISWest the #1 largest Internet Provider in Ventura County.

The current merger marked the fifth in a series of recent ISWest acquisitions of competing ISPs including: TSCO (Westlake Village, CA) in 1997; Channel Island Internet (Ventura, CA) in 1998; and NCPlus (Ventura, CA) and InfoSpec (Thousand Oaks, CA) in 1999.

Drew Kaplan, Vice President, ISWest, said of the event, "We’ve known and respected the Rust family, VCNet’s owners, for years. Recently, Robert Johnson, ISWest’s President and I started talking to the Rust’s about the possibility of merging the two companies, which would create the largest ISP in Ventura County, and offer significant benefits to our customers. Everyone agreed the deal was a win/win."

"Now that ISWest and VCNet have joined forces under the ISWest banner, our service and support will increase dramatically," Kaplan announced enthusiastically. "We’re in the process of expanding our customer service and technical support staffs to help our customers with their questions. We’ve also extended our business hours from 7 am to 7 pm, and soon, we’ll be open until midnight."

"The merger also gives ISWest a total of 10 tier-one backbone providers under one roof, for redundancy and fastest routing. This is an increase of 9 backbones for all VCNet customers," Kaplan added. "Plus, we’ve expanded services such as Nationwide DSL, T1’s, Server Co-location, web hosting, dial up and much more. Now, VCNet customers who did not qualify for certain Internet services in their area can contact ISWest for service."

"So often, you hear of small companies merging with or selling out to larger ones, and the customer always suffers. That personal contact is lost. You see it in the banking industry every day. That’s not about to happen here," stressed Kaplan. "Even though ISWest has grown tremendously over the past five years, our goal is to continue offering customer service and support like a small, local Internet company."

Today, ISWest is anything but small. Founded in 1996, ISWest was ranked 4th largest ISP by the Los Angeles Business Journal in their 2002 list. A full-service Internet provider with 10 major backbone providers under its roof, ISWest specializes in Server Co-location, Managed Co-location, High Speed T1's & DS3's, DSL and Web Hosting for businesses.

For additional information, contact Drew Kaplan, Vice President, ISWest, 30077 Agoura Court, First Floor, Agoura Hills, CA 9130, 818-735-3000. Or visit www.iswest.com