Netscape-Branded ISP Launching February 2004

Guppy06 writes "I'm too lazy to change my homepage in Netscape 7 to something else, and that's where I discovered an ad leading towards what appears to be a trial run of a new Netscape-branded ISP. While this isn't as momentous as, say, Netscape bundled with AOL would be, they seem to be aiming at Juno and NetZero with their price of $9.95/month ($1.00/month to participate in the trial run ending in February). This may just end up being a fizzle, or it could be part of a two-pronged attack on MSN by AOL."

Comments

Re:Netscape offering kind-of-broadband in Canada

[jackb_guppy]

More likely like Juno Premium Service, compression of the HTML and the pictures are redone to a lower bit depth.

Do you ready need 32 bits to see a 8 bit picture?

Re:Cool

[aenea]

Nothing?

Dial-up ISP's are a dime a dozen, and if the customer base isn't shrinking already it probably will be soon. Rather than competing against MSN, it's likely to canabalize people that are looking for a low cost alternative to their AOL account.

They Needed a Name

[thales]

AOL is getting hit from the top and the bottom. High Speed Access is erroding their customer base from the top, and Low Cost Dialups are attracting customers from the bottom. Having their own low cost Dial Up will allow them to at least get some money from people who are leaving them for a cheaper alternitive. Using the AOL brand name for the cheaper service would cause confusion (Why am I being billed 23.95? I saw an ad for 9.95!) so they needed a different name for it. They already own the rights to a well known name associated with the Internet, Netscape, so it was a natural choice.