BellSouth Offers Downloadable Movie Rentals

Sep. 10–BellSouth customers are going to the cybermovies.

Through a deal with Movielink, an online movie service , the Atlanta-based phone company recently started offering downloadable movie rentals over its FastAccess brand high-speed Internet service.

The movie service is the company’s first step into the entertainment realm where it eventually plans to offer a variety of customized content services to customers. BellSouth has approximately 600,000 access lines in Wake and Orange counties.

Under the terms of the contract, BellSouth customers can order movies for $2.95 to $4.99 from Movielinks’ 700-film library and receive special promotions, said Brent Fowler, a BellSouth spokesman .

Fowler said the movies are hosted on BellSouth’s servers and can be downloaded in an average 45 minutes, much shorter than the two hours it generally takes on Movielink.com.

Once downloaded, the file stays on the user’s hard drive for 30 days. Once users click “play,” they have 24 hours to watch the movie on their computer; after that time, the file is deleted.

“BellSouth has chosen to go above and beyond Internet access and viewing e-mails,” said Fowler. “This is a way to help customers find special content that’s specific to their interests,” he said.

So far, BellSouth is the first major telecommunications company to make such an arrangement with an online movie service, but that will soon change, said Jonathan Hurd, vice president of Adventis, a Boston-based media and telecommunications consulting firm.

“There will definitely be other phone companies coming out with value-added services in video, music and gaming,” Hurd said. “In this generation, phone companies have to compete harder against cable companies that now pose a triple threat by offering telephone, Internet and video services.”

In the future, Fowler said BellSouth plans to provide a range of personalized broadcast material, such as major sport events, cooking programs, car shows and old television shows.

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