ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, March 25, 1997                TAG: 9703250096
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

NETCOM TO CUT OFF LINE HOGS USE IT OR LOSE IT, PROVIDER SAYS

Starting next month, Netcom will kick off customers who keep an open connection without using it.

The company that started all-you-can-eat Internet prices three years ago plans to disconnect online hogs and offer a level of service that guarantees no busy signals.

Netcom Online Communications Services will continue to offer the industry standard $19.95 per month unlimited usage option for those who originally signed up for the service before the switch. But next month it will begin kicking off customers who keep an open connection without using it.

For new customers, $24.95 a month plus a $25 set-up fee buys Netcom's basic service. For $5 more, users can get the Advantage Pro packet, which features premium support and access to online research libraries.

And for corporate users, the company will offer a service for hundreds of dollars monthly that guarantees a connection and an automatic jump to the head of the telephone support queue.

Far from the glare of the troubles that infuriated America Online users, Netcom says it has had troubles of its own, with 3 percent of customers tying up a third of its network.

``Unlimited access, unlimited usage and quality - those things do not go together at $19.95,'' said David Garrison, Netcom's chairman and chief executive officer.

Netcom made the decision to switch to a tiered pricing structure after polling 20,000 of its customers in December, Garrison said from Tucson, Ariz., where he is attending the PC Forum conference.

Netcom's strategy is to give up on hobbyists at the bottom of the market and the biggest of corporate accounts that have a direct link to the Internet. Instead, they plan to focus on the individual professionals, small businesses and smaller corporations in the middle.

Sometime after Saturday the company will begin to enforce terms and conditions that allow users to stay online only if they're actually using their account.

He said some of the customers are reselling the online time, and that by getting rid of the 3 percent of users who take up so much of its capacity, Netcom will be able to give better connections to the remaining customers.

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