MCI Moves Into Market for Consumer
High-Speed Internet Services
By SETH SCHIESEL
CI Worldcom Inc. made a big move into the consumer market
for high-speed Internet access Tuesday, announcing a
partnership with Earthlink Network Inc. to sell retail services in as many
as 25 markets by the end of the year.
MCI Worldcom's Uunet operation, the No. 1
supplier of wholesale Internet access, has
conducted high-speed tests with America
Online Inc., the leading retail provider of
Internet and other online services. But America
Online has come to focus on the regional Bell
local phone giants as partners for delivering
high-speed Internet service to consumers.
Earthlink, in contrast, wants to use Uunet's network to offer high-speed
Internet links applying a technology called digital subscriber line, or DSL,
in up to 25 markets by 2000, said Kurt Rahn, an Earthlink spokesman.
Earthlink, which plans to announce quarterly financial results Wednesday
is one of the nation's top five Internet providers, with about 1.2 million
customers.
DSL lets consumers use standard phone wires to link to the Internet at
speeds as much as 30 times faster than are possible with today's fastest
dial-up modems.
Deploying DSL, however, requires phone companies and
communications carriers like Uunet to invest hundreds of dollars a
customer in new equipment.
Earthlink is testing a DSL product in California using systems provided
by the Pacific Bell unit of SBC Communications Inc. and is already
offering DSL service in Charlottesville, Va., through the Sprint Corp.'s
local phone operation.
"Uunet's extensive national DSL network will allow us to offer DSL
services to our members on a much broader scale than before," Jon
Irwin, Earthlink's senior vice president for broadband services, said in a
statement. "By allowing us to reach such a large part of the country
through one provider, we'll significantly cut down on the time it takes to
roll service out in different areas and significantly reduce our operations
costs."
Uunet also said Tuesday that it had deployed DSL systems in 1,000
central telephone switching centers around the nation.
Those "central offices" are mostly controlled by the Bells and the GTE
Corp., but the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the local phone
incumbents to allow other communications carriers to deploy equipment
inside those facilities. Each central office can provide high-speed Internet
links to homes and businesses within a radius of about three-and-a-half
miles.
Uunet's DSL operations now include 22 metropolitan areas in the United
States, but despite the Earthlink deal, it remains focused mostly on
business customers. By the end of the year, Uunet wants to deploy DSL
technology in another 500 central telephone offices.
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