|
Comcast network to offer customers rival Net provider
By Bill Bergstrom
Associated Press
February 27, 2002
PHILADELPHIA -- Comcast Corp., which recently set up its own high-speed Internet network, will begin to offer customers a choice of Net service providers, the company said Tuesday.
During the next three months, customers in the Indianapolis and the Nashville, Tenn., areas will be able to subscribe either to the Comcast service or a competitor, United Online Inc.
Comcast, which has nearly 30,000 Internet subscribers in central Indiana, chose Indianapolis as one of the rollout markets because United Online has a high percentage of customers here, said Dave Watson, Comcast's executive vice president.
"It's just an overall great market," Watson said.
The deal enables United Online, owner of the budget-priced Internet service providers NetZero and Juno, to offer high-speed Internet access to its customers for the first time.
Comcast's high-speed Internet service has about 950,000 customers nationwide. United Online's NetZero and Juno Online services have about 5.6 million dial-up users. The companies didn't disclose terms of the deal.
Comcast set up its high-speed Net service recently after its previous service, operated by Excite@Home, went bankrupt. The last e-mail account customers are switching over before @Home shuts its network Thursday.
Staff writer J.K. Wall contributed to this article.
|
