SBC adds broadband Yahoo! to DSL mix

SBC Communications has taken the second step in its relationship with Yahoo! and, at the same time, reiterated its commitment to growing its DSL broadband Internet service by launching SBC Yahoo! DSL.

The service is available to more than 26 million subscriber locations in SBC’s 13-state region, where the telco has 1.7 million DSL subscribers. It follows a June dial-up partnership launch between SBC and Yahoo!

“This is a completely different portal to give our broadband customers a much more robust online experience,” an SBC spokesman said. “Over the last few years, broadband has been a really big push for us, which made us the leading DSL provider. We wanted to take a step further and accelerate our growth, which is why we formed an alliance with Yahoo!”

The spokesman said that the DSL programs will be written with broadband in mind and will be different from Yahoo!’s dial-up and Yahoo.com sites.

“From the ground up, this is built with broadband content, so you can use personalization, interactivity, and usability features that you can only really use with a broadband connection,” the spokesman said. “It’s not just the broadband content that you’re getting, but the whole experience and usability of the site is much different because of the broadband connection.”

The service comes in three flavors. In its basic form, it provides download speeds up to 384 kilobits per second (kb/s) and upstream up to 128 kb/s for $42.95 monthly. The second level provides 384 kb/s to 1.5 megabits per second (Mb/s) upstream and 128 kb/s downstream for $49.95 a month. The deluxe version, priced at $59.95 per month, offers downstream speeds from 768 kb/s to 1.5 Mb/s and upstream of 256 kb/s.