AT&T; Restores Service to Data Network Users

AT&T; Corp. restored service to most of its business customers who lost service when a high-speed data network malfunctioned. The problems began Monday afternoon with AT&T;’s frame relay network, a specialized system used throughout the country by businesses that need to do large numbers of transactions. Other AT&T; services--long-distance, wireless and Internet--were not affected, the company said. The outage was caused by a problem with the interaction between two switches within the company’s data network, an AT&T; spokesman said. AT&T; would not disclose how many of its customers were affected by the outage. But a source close to the company said frame relay is used by more than 7,000 companies and that AT&T; has more than 50% of the market.