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Technology Stocks : Data Race (NASDAQ: RACE) NEWS! 2 voice/data/fax: ONE LINE! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (32793)	10/4/1999 9:15:00 PM
From: Jimi Plym	Respond to of 33268

Data Race to offer Internet, voice line SAN ANTONIO, Texas, Oct 4 (Reuters) - A Texas technology company began offering Monday a service that allows consumers to use their phones or fax machines while simultaneously surfing the Internet, all on a single home phone line. The service could eliminate the need for a second phone line, which has become a popular item among home Internet users. Data Race Inc, based in San Antonio, said its OnePhoneLine.net service would be offered locally at first, but could be rolled out nationally early in 2000. ''We want to be sure we have a handle on the issues we're not that experienced at -- taking service calls, doing the billing, those kinds of things,'' said Data Race president Ben Barker. He said the service would use Data Race communications technology to feed phone calls through the Internet. Similar services have been offered over high band-width Internet connections, but not on a standard home phone line, Barker said. ''When you are on line and you get a phone call, our system causes that phone call to be routed to OnePhoneLine.net office, where it gets digitized and multiplexed with the data. It actually rings on your phone while you're on line,'' Barker said. The base price of $19.95 a month would include unlimited Internet access, Barker said. Data Race began about 15 years ago as a company designing and making modems for notebook computers, but has shifted to the design of communication systems as the modem market has changed, Barker said. He said the company, which employs 60 people, once had revenues of about $40 million a year, but has fallen to about $3 million annually. biz.yahoo.com

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (32793)	10/4/1999 9:23:00 PM
From: Jimi Plym	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 33268

The Reuters press release answers one of my questions - how will they handle incoming calls - ''When you are on line and you get a phone call, our system causes that phone call to be routed to OnePhoneLine.net office, where it gets digitized and multiplexed with the data. It actually rings on your phone while you're on line,'' Barker said. . . I hope customers will be assured their phone calls will be kept private, secure, etc. I also hope that Data Race is geared up for all the hassles that comes with running an ISP. I can understand how they could try to do this just within SA, but to go national would require an alliance with a major player, wouldn't it?

To: Bill Fischofer who wrote (32793)	10/5/1999 11:07:00 AM
From: Guth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 33268

Even though I've been using a cable modem for the past two years and would never go back, I still have to keep a dialup service as backup because cable just isn't reliable enough yet to serve as one's only ISP. I don't doubt your experiences with your cable company because I've heard it from others. It hasn't been mine though, 8 months with the cable modem, the only down time was a result of power outages. So a power user may need a backup, does that mean he/she needs to have a backup their backup with OnePhoneLine? I don't think so. When I canceled the service with my dial up ISP, the guy had a 'canned' sales pitch(I assumed it was canned because they had been losing so much business to cable). He mentioned reliability, on-the-road-access, etc. He told me I could have 20 hours a month for $4.95. I declined, told him I'd contact him if I found I needed it. Looks to me like the OnePhoneLine market will be limited to power users with an unreliable cable company that want to have a redundant back up system. For these hoards, DR gets $4.95 per sub. Believe it or not, this revenue stream may be dwarfed by BT. Dale