California connectivity: Pac Bell Internet Services offers users more creative tools

Pacific Bell has introduced two upgrades to its consumer Internet dial-up service to help the carrier stay current as the Internet service provider market develops.

Pacific Bell Internet Services, following the lead of some smaller ISPs, lets customers have personal home pages on the World Wide Web. End users can create and upload their home pages by using a Web interface that includes existing templates or by using any third-party authoring tool and uploading via file transfer protocol.

The home page service is available only to the carrier's dial-up customers and can be ordered through the Pacific Bell Web site at www.pacbell.net. The service is $2.95 a month and includes 3 Mbytes of storage. Users can buy additional storage space at $1 per Mbyte.

The second upgrade allowed for additional local Internet access numbers in Antioch, Modesto, Tracy, Stockton, Napa, Vallejo, Fairfield, Santa Clarita, Oceanside, Yorba Linda and Capistrano Valley, Calif.

Pacific Bell provides dial-up Internet access at a $19.95 flat monthly rate, with a 10-day free trial period. Customers can also sign up for a 12-month pricing plan, which includes two free months of Internet access per year.

As part of its service, Pacific Bell offers a "POP calculator" feature that users can call before signing up to see whether their service will be available through a local or a toll call. When included with the carrier's existing 37 access points, the new local numbers let Pacific Bell provide local Internet access to more than 85% of Californians.

"Pacific Bell is committed to bringing our valued customers a more complete Internet experience and making it available to more Californians," said Steven Hubbard, president and chief executive officer of Pacific Bell Internet Services.

Although new for Pacific Bell, some "pure" ISPs have offered similar Web services for nearly two years, said Rebecca Wetzel, director of Internet consulting for TeleChoice.

Pacific Bell's business has continued to attract new users even without the service. But the company needed to make the home pages available to stay competitive in the future, she said.

Wetzel expects a shakeout of ISPs in the next few years. The ones that don't offer full services and value for their customers won't survive, she said. "To be competitive in the future, ISPs will have to pay close attention to service," she said. Part of that service encompasses personal home pages.

It's important for ISPs not only to provide an adequate number of local dial-up access points, but also to have enough internal resources, including modems, to support their customer base, Wetzel said. She pointed to America Online's problems last year when the company started offering unlimited access but had nowhere near the lines needed to handle the rapid growth in the number and length of customer connections.

Pacific Bell has done "an adequate job" in providing Internet service for users to date, including offering a sufficient number of local connections, Wetzel said. The latest upgrades "will strengthen their hand," she said.

Pacific Bell has more upgrades planned for later this year, said Ed Callen, director of consumer and small business Internet services for Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell. Among them:

* The carrier offers 33.6 kb/s connection speeds throughout the network, but it has yet to add the new 56 kb/s service that some other ISPs have started. Pacific Bell is starting to experiment with the 56 kb/s modems and could offer faster connections by October.

* Pacific Bell will offer multiple mailboxes for single accounts.

* The company is expanding roaming privileges through the combined Pacific Bell/Southwestern Bell territory as a result of the merger.

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