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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DAY TRADER who wrote (7764)	2/13/1998 12:26:00 AM
From: prakash	Respond to of 13594

Sorry if this is a repeat. From SMI: BEST BUYS MINDSPRING: THE BETTER OPTION STARTING IN APRIL, AOL subscribers will get a nasty surprise when they open their monthly statements. The cost of unlimited Internet use will jump from $19.95 a month to $21.95. Is AOL worth the extra 10%? We don't think so. There are at least another 4,999 Internet service providers (ISPs) out there. Many of those are regional, offering non-long-distance access in only a few cities. But MindSpring Enterprises is a national provider that offers swift connections and customer service that beat AOL's by a long shot. And its unlimited price plan is still just $19.95 a month. Mindspring has other plans, like its "Light" offering that charges $6.95 a month for five hours and then $2 for each additional hour; and its "Works," which for $26.95 a month gives you unlimited dial-in access, 10 MB of personal Web space for your own Web site, three email accounts and 100 hours of 64 Kbps ISDN access. All the plans charge a $25 setup fee. So if you are switching from AOL, it will take you a year to break even. But meanwhile, we think you will be enjoying better customer service. At Mindspring you can actually speak to a human being within seconds of calling, instead of clicking through layers of automated menus to reach customer service like you must at America Online. Unfortunately, we aren't the only ones who like MindSpring. Ten cities around the country are not accepting additional MindSpring subscribers until technical representatives are confident they can adequately service new customers, without congestion. Cable Modems The best deal for high-speed Internet access is through cable modem services such as Time Warner Cable's Road Runner Group and @Home Inc. As Bobbi Murphy, vice president of marketing for Inverse Network Technology, puts it, "If there is cable modem service in your community -- get it." Both the Road Runner Group and @Home Inc. offer high-speed cable access for about $35 to $50 a month with a one-time set-up fee for $100 to $175. Maximum downloading speeds range from 10 Mbps to 24 Mbps. But the actual speed varies depending on the size of the file, server congestion and neighborhood usage. At this time, only about 12 million homes in the country have access to cable modem service. Updating local cable systems' infrastructure to accommodate high-speed Internet access is costly and complex. But both @Home Inc. and the Road Runner Group, which recently merged with U.S. West Media Group's high-speed Internet division, claim that cable modem access is coming soon to a community near you. -- By Joelle Klein