Why are you moving to this so-called Global Branch Network? We have outgrown our satellite technology, and it's important for us to have new a conduit because we really need to provide the best tools to our financial advisors. We have great tools already but need to continue to improve them to support financial assessment software and e-learning. AT&T's terrestrial lines enable us to do that. Satellite communications were limited in terms of bandwidth. This new technology gives us the ability to beef up our systems.

How is this working out? We have 10,000 branch offices, with one financial advisor per office, so the system will grow as we add offices. But already from a response-time standpoint, using land lines has dramatically improved response times, so the network will not only allow more applications but [also] help them run faster.

How much faster is the response time compared with the satellite network? The response time on Web-based interactions is down by 75 percent. Currently, we have 4,000 offices already converted. We started with AT&T about six months ago, and the due date for the conversion of all 10,000 offices is July 31. We're pleased with AT&T that it has met an aggressive time schedule.

What do you plan to do in terms of converging network traffic? Our goal is to converge data, voice and video into one network. Previously, we moved video over satellite and then to TV monitors from the satellite. Through these new lines to the desktop, we can converge [everything]. Satellite is really great for streaming video but not for two-way data communications, such as Internet traffic.

Is AT&T relying on a single technology vendor for the network gear? It's multiple vendors, with different vendors for different network layers.