Following the ADSL line: Ameritech partners with Microsoft to accelerate Internet access

Ameritech announced several services last week designed to make high-speed Internet access easier for consumers to receive with asymmetrical digital subscriber line-enabled service.

The Bell company launched Ameritech.net high-speed Internet service in Ann Arbor, Mich., with plans to roll out the service in Royal Oak, Mich., in the next two months and in Chicago later in 1998. The carrier is targeting consumers and small business. Within three years, Ameritech expects the service to be available to 70% of its customer base.

Customers are demanding faster speeds to upload and download information from the Internet, said Valeri Marks, president of Ameritech Interactive Media Services. ADSL capability will provide Internet connections up to 50 times faster than connections with a standard 28.8 kb/s modem.

Ameritech also announced that it is partnering with Microsoft to promote the ADSL technology.

Ameritech and Microsoft are in discussions with hardware manufacturers to make personal computers and equipment ADSL-compatible.

The two companies will package Ameritech's high-speed service with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and software designed to simplify ADSL installation.

"We are working collaboratively to make installing ADSL as easy as plug and play," said Cameron Myhvold, vice president of Microsoft's Internet customer unit.

The agreement with Microsoft is larger than the ADSL announcement, though, according to John Hunter, broadband analyst for TeleChoice. ADSL trials already have been announced by U S West and SBC Communications; Bell Atlantic is expected to make a similar announcement in the first quarter of 1998. But Microsoft's presence is unique to the Ameritech announcement.

Customers will take note of that and be more apt to stay with Ameritech when other ADSL-enabled competitors enter the market, Hunter said.

The promise of faster speeds could prompt customers to wait for ADSL rather than use 56 kb/s modems or ISDN lines.

But Marks said some of the customers who want faster speeds today will use these technologies in the interim.

Hunter disagreed, saying that ADSL will mean the death of ISDN and 56 kb/s modems.

"They're charging about double what someone would pay for 56 kb/s service, but the downloads are about 24 times as fast," he said.

* The ability to download materials from the Internet at up to 1.5 Mb/s per second and to send materials at up to 128 kb/s.

* The cost to "charter customers," those who sign up from now through 1998, is $49.95 a month, plus $150 for installation. In addition, the $199 one-time charge for the ADSL modem will be waived.

* Starting in 1999, Ameritech will charge $59.95 a month for the service, along with the installation and modem fees.