In late February, AT&T announced that its upcoming WorldNet Service would provide Þve free hours of Internet access a month to all AT&T residential long-distance customers. At once, the company's lines were swamped by callers eager to sign up, and with an estimated 25 million AT&T customers owning PCs, it's hard to bet against the company's latest foray into the online world.
That was certainly the stock market's perception: major access providers from America Online to Netcom saw their stock prices drop on the announcement. With the regional Bell companies, long-distance providers, and cable companies working on their own competitive offerings, expect to see new deÞnitions of the word "free" cropping up regularly.
AT&T has stormed into existing markets before go back to the launch of its Universal Card, when AT&T gave customers no-fee credit cards for life and changed the credit business forever. ISPs, brace yourselves for the communications giant's next tsunami.
ELECTRIC WORD
The Only Candidate that matters is Virtual
AT&T Delivers Net Access
