BellSouth is jumping into the fray.
<<BellSouth FastAccess ADSL is Making Waves
Birmingham: Surfing Capitol of the South
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The surfing is great in Birmingham. Internet surfing, that is.
Land-locked Birmingham is the surfing capital of the South thanks to the new BellSouth(R) FastAccess ADSL(sm) service, currently being tested there. The trial, scheduled to last 'til mid-1998, offers participants interaction speeds from 30 to 100 times faster than available with conventional dial-up modems.
''We're very pleased with market trial results to date,'' said Chuck Carr, BellSouth marketing manager for Consumer Services. ''We're especially delighted to have additional Internet service providers (ISPs) and their customers, joining us in this trial.''
World Web Internet Services Provider, Inc. (WWISP) recently elected to participate in the market trial of what Carr termed ''today's most advanced technology in consumer high-speed Internet access.''
''The public hunger for higher Internet access speeds is increasing,'' WWISP's David Lowenstein asserted. ''We joined BellSouth's ADSL trial to give our customers what they want. And they absolutely love it,'' Lowenstein said.
One such WWISP subscriber and ADSL trial participant is Hoover, Alabama's Don Rand. ''There's no way I'd ever go back to a dial-up Internet arrangement,'' Rand said. ''FastAccess ADSL has out-performed my expectations. I'm nothing but pleased.''
Rand, who works in the computer industry, has created a file transfer site on his home computer for use in network game playing with friends and file transfer from his business server. ''My friends are really jealous of my ADSL service,'' he laughs.
ADSL, short for asymmetrical digital subscriber line, service enables Internet surfers to achieve very high access speeds over regular telephone lines. Because the Birmingham test is for a limited period and officially designated a trial, BellSouth is providing necessary equipment and installation without charge.
''Residential-class FastAccess ADSL service costs $20 monthly. Business- class ADSL is $70 monthly. Participants also must have Internet access service through an ISP, such as WWISP, and computers that meet certain technical/performance standards,'' Carr explained.
In addition to lightning fast speeds, BellSouth FastAccess ADSL service provides an uninterrupted connection to the Internet, or a corporate intranet. ''Since the service is always 'on-line' there's no delay for dial-up modems to connect, no busy signals, and there's instant access to e-mail, late-breaking news, financial quotes, etc.,'' Carr said.
While ADSL is provided over existing regular telephone lines, it is delivered over very high frequencies that don't interfere with simultaneous voice communications. ''Users can even send or receive a fax at the same time they're on-line downloading files from the Internet,'' Carr said.
BellSouth FastAccess ADSL service is available during the trial in parts of the following Birmingham-area communities: Cahaba Heights, Homewood, Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Hoover and Riverchase. Interested parties should check the BellSouth web site to see if they qualify to participate in the trial: bellsouth.com.
WWISP is based in Birmingham and provides Internet access to customers in 130 cities. In addition, the company also designs and stores web pages for customers and offers Internet classes for users. Information on WWISP and the Birmingham FastAccess ADSL trial is available on its web site: wwisp.com.
BellSouth provides telecommunications services in nine Southeastern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. BellSouth serves 23 million local telephone lines and provides local exchange and intraLATA long distance service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world.
SOURCE: BellSouth>>
Anybody care to guess who is their ADSL equipment provider?
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