DATE: Thursday, February 27, 1997           TAG: 9702270436

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: By Dave Mayfield, Staff Writer

                                            LENGTH:   48 lines

GO SLOW WITH FAST MODEM: THE ISSUES

If nothing else, the interest in U.S. Robotics Corp.'s new x2 modem illustrates the ever-growing push for speed on the information highway.

It's a desire that iTRiBE Inc.'s marketing director, Peter Cousin, said was amplified by the recent problems of America Online Inc. Traffic jams at the nation's largest on-line service chased many AOL subscribers to Internet service providers such as Norfolk-based iTRiBE, which have, in turn, strained to avoid slowdowns of their own.

Cousin said iTRiBE several weeks ago placed a moratorium on signing up customers until it completed the installation of 96 phone lines and some computer equipment. The moratorium was necessary, he said, to keep iTRiBE's existing customers from running into ever-longer waits to hop into cyberspace.

``It was a risk,'' he said. ``But we made the decision that we were going to limit our ratio (of subscribers per phone line) at 10 to 1.''

Cousin said the delay wouldnot have lasted nearly as long if Bell Atlantic Corp. were quicker at installing the lines. ``They're overwhelmed by the needs of Internet services providers in this area,'' he said.

Bell Atlantic spokesman Paul Miller confirmed that the phone company has been swamped by orders for data lines - particularly in Norfolk. He said Bell Atlantic added a significant number of trunk lines into its Bute Street central office in January. The problem will not be solved until March 7, he said, when a further upgrade is completed.

The need for speed seems sure to continue straining the phone company's network. Indeed, it's contributing to the phenomenon itself.

Bell Atlantic and other local phone companies are aggressively marketing Internet services to consumers. One called ISDN, short for Integrated Services Digital Network, moves data at up to 128 kilobits per second. The residential service starts at $23.50 a month, plus usage fees of 1 to 4 cents a minute. That's in addition to an installation fee of $125 and a monthly fee for subscribing to an Internet-access provider. Yet Bell Atlantic says demand for ISDN service has been robust.

Meanwhile, cable providers like Cox Communications Inc. are ramping up so-called ``cable modems'' that will let users cruise in cyberspace at speeds dozens or hundreds of times faster. Cox may introduce such a service in Hampton Roads this year.

In the case of this go-fast service, however, Cox is taking a go-slow approach.

``We know there's a lot of interest in it,'' said Dana Coltrin, a local Cox manager. ``But we're not going to bring it out until we're sure that we can do it right.''

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