TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Yahoo in Broadband Phone Pact With BellSouth

Yahoo in Broadband Phone Pact With BellSouth

Eric Auchard (reuters@telecom-digest.org)
Mon, 17 Oct 2005 14:56:43 -0500

By Eric Auchard

Yahoo Inc. and BellSouth Corp. on Monday said they agreed to offer
high-speed Internet service across the No. 3 U.S. local phone service
provider's nine-state region, moving Yahoo one step closer to
nationwide broadband coverage.

In a joint statement, the world's largest Internet media company and
the No. 3 U.S. local phone company said the new, co-branded service
will start operating in late 2006 and be aimed at BellSouth
residential broadband subscribers.

"We believe it will be fourth quarter 2006," Jeff Ezell, BellSouth
vice president of business development, said in a phone interview.

Yahoo already has broadband partnerships with SBC Communications Inc.
and Verizon Communications Inc., the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. local phone
service providers.

This means Yahoo only lacks a deal with Qwest Communications
International Inc., the No. 4 local carrier, to fill out a national
map, which would allow it to market its services nationally instead of
region by region.

"We are holding talks with a variety of companies globally," Jim
Schinella, Yahoo's vice president for business development, said when
asked if his company was in talks on a similar partnership with Qwest
Communications.

Yahoo shares gained 70 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $34.22 in late
afternoon trading on Nasdaq. BellSouth shares dipped 12 cents to
$24.92 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Over the past year, Yahoo has signed similar broadband partnerships
with Verizon and Canadian broadband cable service provider Rogers
Communications Inc. and expanded pacts with SBC and Britain's BT Group
Plc while it continues to hunt for further deals.

Yahoo's partnerships with broadband service providers involve jointly
developing a special browser that prominently features links to
various Web services offered by Yahoo and the local broadband
providers.

The co-branded BellSouth Yahoo service will be available to all three
tiers of broadband service now offered by BellSouth. BellSouth counts
2.4 million subscribers to its broadband services.

The phone company provides a "DSL Lite" version at 256 kilobit per
second download speeds starting at $24.95 per month. It offers a 1.5
megabit speed for $32.95 and its top-tier 3 megabit per second service
for $42.95.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Is this the same 'Bell South' which has
thus far been unable/unwilling to restore even a modicum of basic
phone service to the areas of New Orleans which suffered heavily from
the Katrina/Rita storms? The same 'Bell South' which has largely
written off much of 9th Ward New Orleans almost entirely? Or is it
some other company with the same name? PAT]

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