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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (45932)	1/18/1998 12:10:00 AM
From: Barry Grossman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Mohan and all: Intel Will Unveil New Technology Designed to Speed Up Downloads interactive3.wsj.com THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION January 17, 1998 By LISA BRANSTEN Intel Corp. will unveil a new technology Monday that it says can speed up surfing for millions of Internet users tired of the "World Wide Wait" -- but speed demons will have to pay up for better service. Quick Web Technology will give Internet users faster access to Web pages with lots of pictures by compressing some of the information from the graphical images so that there is less data to transmit. The result is lower-quality graphics, but served up at a higher speed. The service will also allow Internet-service providers to "cache" or store copies of Web pages downloaded by their users so that the next time a user requests one of those pages it can be delivered directly from the Internet-service provider, offering much speedier response. Users of Quick Web will see a "Web-O-Meter" on their screens that shows the estimated performance gain they are getting out of the service. Two Internet service providers, Erols Internet Inc. and Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc., have already agreed to offer the product, as has GlobalCenter Inc., the data-distribution company and Internet-service provider that agreed this week to be acquired by Frontier Corp. The service will be available to consumers as early as Monday. Interested users could buy the service through their Internet-service provider for an additional charge of about $5 a month, and would have the ability to turn it off if they wanted to see higher-quality images. Intel, which is the largest microprocessor company in the world, expects 10% to 20% of Web users might be willing to pay for the service. That could mean a substantial amount of business for the Santa Clara, Calif., company, considering that 20 million people in the U.S. have dial-up access to the Internet. David Preston, marketing manager for the new product, said the primary motivation behind its development was to improve the performance of the Internet, which Intel sees as a catalyst for additional personal computer sales. Netcom, which has been testing the product with users for two months, hopes that the service will attract new customers, especially business users, to its service. "People are frustrated with the World Wide Wait, so if there are things we can do to enhance the user's experiences, than we're going to do them," said Scott Wills, senior vice president of business ventures at Netcom. In addition to enhancing the experience for consumers, the product should also benefit Internet-service providers by alleviating traffic on their networks, said Rebecca Wetzel, director of Internet consulting at TeleChoice, Inc. Barbara Ells, an industry analyst at Zona Research in Redwood City, Calif. said the product is not revolutionary, but added that Internet users employing it could download complex images about 10 seconds more quickly.