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Verizon Teams Up With Yahoo to Offer Cheaper, but Slower, DSL Net Service

Posted on: Tuesday, 23 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 24--Verizon rolled out a cheaper DSL Internet service in partnership with Yahoo on Tuesday.

And in a separate announcement expected today, Verizon plans to expand a new phone service into New Jersey called Iobi that lets homes and businesses manage calls.

The new DSL service, which Verizon calls an "entry-level consumer" service, will deliver slower speeds than its regularly priced service but at a lower cost to compete with cable Internet offers.

The New York-based phone giant will charge $15 per month with a top connection speed of 768 kilobits per second download and 128 Kbps upload with an annual service agreement. The service is "designed to attract dial-up users to broadband," the company said Tuesday. Nearly 50 percent of Internet subscribers still use dial-up, the company estimated.

"Our goal is just to give people a taste of [broadband]," Bob Ingalls, president of Verizon's Retail Markets Group, said in a conference call Tuesday. The Yahoo partnership will provide Verizon DSL customers with a variety of on-demand services and security features.

Verizon sells a faster DSL service -- 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second) download and 768kpbs upload -- for $30 with a one-year contract. In some locations, customers receive faster speeds for the same monthly price.

Investors sent shares of Verizon up 11 cents Tuesday to close at $33.24.

Verizon is joining Texas-based regional phone company SBC, which previously announced a partnership with Yahoo! Inc. to sell DSL.

The nation's regional phone companies are battling cable giants, with both industries vying for phone and Internet customers. Verizon also is rolling out a high-speed fiber network in 70 towns in New Jersey by year's end and hopes to offer TV service over those lines.

Verizon's Iobi service for homes and businesses allows customers to manage phone calls, voice mail, address books and e-mail using land and wireless phones, computers and personal digital organizers

An Iobi user can view on a computer a list of all incoming calls and voicemail messages. Someone at work, for example, can monitor incoming calls to a home phone and see when a child's school is calling. The parent can then choose to transfer the call to an office phone or to forward it to a wireless handset or a caregiver's phone, in real time, according to Verizon.

The business version of Iobi allows organizations and corporate customers with older-style Centrex phone systems to add advanced computer-like features to their phones without having to replace their entire system.

Iobi Home costs $8 per month per line and includes the Caller ID and call forwarding features of regular phone service, Verizon said. Iobi Professional is $12 per month per line.

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VZ, YHOO,

Source: The Record - Hackensack, New Jersey

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