levy - take a look at this news release.
News December 20, 01:25 Eastern Time
Juno offers $9.95/mth Web access or free with ads
NEW YORK, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Juno Online Services Inc.
on Monday said it will broaden its Internet access
offerings to include free ad-supported and lower-cost monthly
services in the latest move to put pressure on premium-priced
services such as market leader America Online Inc. .
The company, which started out as a free e-mail provider
and now counts roughly 2.5 million active e-mail users, also
said it planned to cut the cost of its full monthly access
offer to $9.95 from the going industry rate of $19.95 a month.
In addition, Juno said it would introduce a high-speed
Internet access service known as Juno Express in early 2000
with details on pricing and potential partners to follow. In
October, it announced a deal with minority owner News Corp
to supply programming to the upcoming high-speed
service.
The three additional Internet access offerings will come in
addition to its standard offer of free e-mail access, supported
by advertising. The $9.95-per-month offer includes 150 hours of
access in exchange for viewing a limited number of ads.
The New York-based company counted 400,000 billable
subscribers to its Internet access services at the end of
September, the most recent period for which figures are
available and up from 270,000 at the end of June.
The company has signed up 7.6 million subscriber accounts
of which 2.9 million were active in the third quarter.
Juno positions itself as a mainstream provider of Internet
services, competing with the likes of far larger AOL, Earthlink
/Mindspring and Microsoft Corp's MSN
in an effort to attract millions of newcomers online.
Other U.S.-based free Internet access providers include
ad-supported NetZero and online-shopping supported
WorldSpy Corp of White Plains, N.Y. NetZero claimed 1 million
users of its free Internet access service in September.
America Online competes in the budget-priced Internet
access category with its CompuServe brand and recently has
struck a range of deals with PC makers and retailers that offer
variations of either subsidised PCs or low-priced Web access.
Shares of Juno closed off of a point on Friday at
16-3/8, little changed from its initial public offering price
of 13 in May.
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