Bell Atlantic Readies Internet Access Services

Signing up the two biggest names in the Internet industry, Bell Atlantic said Wednesday it will launch the first offering in a planned suite of Internet access services next month. Bell Atlantic will kick off its initial Internet service geared to businesses in Washington, DC in May, and add access for customers in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Jersey over the next few months.

Consumer based access services launch in June in Washington, Baltimore and Roanoke, Virginia. San Francisco Web design house vivid studios has built a "user-friendly" navigation page for the upcoming consumer service.

Pricing for power surfers who will want unlimited TNet access will be set at $19.95 per month, while more casual browsers can pick a plan for $6.95 for five hours per month.

The baby Bell high speed dedicated access for businesses will feature service using frame relay or SMDS (Switched Multi-megabit Data Service), with speeds from 56 kilobits to 34 megabits per second. Bell will also provide a host of Web site production, hosting and security services.

The firm also announced agreements with Microsoft and Netscape Wednesday.

Bell Atlantic will give its Internet customers access to a customized version of the Microsoft Network and the Explorer Browser, beginning this summer. All of Bell Atlantic's Internet customers will get Netscape's Navigator browser, and Bell plans to license Netscape's Commerce Server for use by its business Internet customers.

Bell Atlantic is not daunted by the increasingly fierce competition in the Internet service provider arena. "We believe our navigational experience will be competitive and easy to use," said Larry Plumb, Bell Atlantic's director of communications. "We anticipate that we will be able to do this in a way where we can package [the Internet service] tied to an additional phone line or ISDN , and that's going to be a point of differentiation in our market vis-a vis other carriers."

For more information on Bell Atlantic's Internet strategy, check out their web site at http://www.bell-atl.com/internet.

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