COLT Appoints Andreas Barth to Board of Directors


LONDON, Aug. 29, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- COLT Telecom Group plc (Nasdaq:COLT) (LSE:CTM), a leading European provider of business communication services, announced today the appointment of Andreas Barth as a non-executive director with effect from 01 September 2003.

Mr Barth is currently a senior advisor to General Atlantic Partners, a private equity investment firm, Chairman of the board of BOG Management GmbH and a member of the supervisory board of TDS Informationstechnologie AG. From 1991 to 1999 he was Senior Vice President and General Manager Europe, Middle East and Africa with Compaq Computer Corporation and had previously held management positions at Thomson-CSF, Texas Instruments and Ford.

Mr Barth is married with two children and lives in Grunwald, Germany.

COLT Chairman, Barry Bateman said: "I am pleased to announce that Andreas Barth is joining the Board of COLT. He has an impressive track record in leading large organisations. His business experience and strong commercial drive will make a valuable contribution to the growth and development of COLT."

ABOUT COLT

COLT Telecom Group plc is a leading pan-European provider of business communications services. COLT has over 17,000 network services and eBusiness customers. The company owns an integrated 20,000 kilometre network that directly connects over 9,000 buildings in 32 major cities in 13 countries augmented with a further 41 points of presence across Europe and 11 Internet Solution Centres. COLT supplies customers across the full spectrum of industry, service and government sectors with unrivalled end-to-end network security, reliability and service.

COLT Telecom Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (CTM.L) and NASDAQ (COLT). Information about COLT and its products and services can be found on the web at www.colt.net.



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John Doherty
Director Corporate Communications
Tel: +44 20 7390 3681
Email: jdoherty@colt-telecom.com