Speedy on-line service Oklahoma-based
firm works to offer Internet access at a
faster pace.
An Internet service provider is trying to beat Southwestern Bell
at its own game.
ioNet Inc., an Oklahoma-based company that supplies
Internet service to Kansas City and 13 other cities, says it will
launch a new service next week that will offer access to the
Internet at speeds 200 times faster than those generally
available today.
ioNet would be the first company in the nation to roll out
asynchronous digital subscriber line (ADSL) service on a
widespread commercial basis. The service will be marketed
initially in Little Rock, Ark., Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla.,
and Kansas City.
Asynchronous digital subscriber line service is considered to
be the next generation of technology aimed at speeding up
the transmission of data on the Internet.
The company will begin marketing the service in Kansas City
on Monday. The line service won't come cheap - ioCom plans
to charge $95 a month, a price that includes Internet access
and, potentially, local telephone service.
Simplified, the line service allows high-speed data
transmissions through conventional telephone lines - 200
times faster than the speeds available with the 28.8
kilobit-per-second modems in most common use today.
The line service users can use a conventional voice telephone
and transmit data over the same line at the same time.
ioNet's subsidiary, ioCom, initially will offer the line service in
limited areas in and around Kansas City at speeds of 1.5
megabits a second - matching the high-speed, and costly, T-1
lines used by many commercial Internet providers. Such lines
often cost $1,400 a month or more.
At that speed, videoconferencing, interactive games and a
variety of other services will be available to home users
currently frustrated by slow connections, said Leonard Conn,
president of ioNet.
Conn said ioCom is trying to make the service more cost
competitive by offering additional services. The price includes
unlimited access to the Internet. And ioCom is negotiating
with an area telephone carrier to provide local telephone
service.
In addition to the $95 monthly fee, customers will have to buy
or lease a router or adapter to connect a home computer to
the service. The initial cost of that equipment is $450, but the
price should drop to $250 by late summer, Conn said. ioCom
works with U.S. Robotics, which provides the equipment.
``What we're trying to do is make this as attractive to the
average user as possible to lower the barrier to entry,'' Conn
said.
ioCom works with Brooks Fiber Communications of Kansas
City to provide fiber-optic cable for the service. The company
will lease local lines from Brooks or from Southwestern Bell,
Conn said.
Initially, the line service will be available only in downtown
Kansas City. Within six weeks, the service should be
available in other areas, including Corporate Woods, Lenexa
and Westport, Conn said.
By the end of the summer, ioCom will be able to offer service
at 7 megabits a second - a speed that makes even movies on
demand possible, Conn said.
Conn said he expects about half of the company's line service
customers to be businesses looking to link several corporate
locations together into a single network, or those with
home-based employees.
At 7 megabits a second, employees in remote locations
should be able to hook into a corporate network and access it
at the same speed they're used to at the main office, Conn
said.
ioNet, with about 70 employees, is a 14-year-old privately
owned Internet provider and network consulting firm based in
Oklahoma City. About 35 percent of the company's revenue
comes from Internet service, Conn said.
Conn conceded that ioCom is trying to beat Southwestern
Bell to market with the line service to secure a foothold in the
high-speed data transmission business.
Southwestern Bell has been testing the line service at Shell
Oil headquarters in Houston since late September, and those
tests are continuing, said Andy Craig, a spokesman for
Southwestern Bell. Although the company said last year that
the line service would be available in early 1997, Craig said
Southwestern Bell hasn't set a date to begin marketing the
service.
The pricing structure makes the line service competitive price
wise with Integrated Services Digital Network service (ISDN), a
product that Southwestern Bell has been promoting heavily for
the last year. Southwestern Bell recently dropped the price of
unlimited network services to $92.50 a month, Craig said. The
company promotes the service as an alternative to access the
Internet more quickly.
``We think the two technologies are going to co-exist,'' Craig
said.
Although ioCom will be the first to offer the line service on any
kind of a commercial basis, the service is available on a
limited basis in some areas of the country.
An Internet service provider in Austin, Texas, offers the line
service to anyone within three miles of the company's main
office. Similar deals are offered by Internet providers in several
cities on the East Coast.
Bell Atlantic Corp. said earlier this month that the company
will begin offering widespread line services in mid-1998.
Ameritech and IBM have been testing the technology with
customers in Wheaton, a Chicago suburb.
North America,United States of America,Central United
States,Midwest United States,Missouri
The Kansas City Star
Author: DAVID HAYES
May 29, 1997 |
