DATE: Saturday, March 1, 1997               TAG: 9703010365

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

HAMPTON ROADS CUSTOMERS CAN TAKE A NEW ROUTE TO AMERICA ONLINE

Digital City Hampton Roads didn't want to lose customers because of America Online's busy signals, so Friday, it announced a bypass.

Digital City enlisted iTRiBE Inc., a Norfolk Internet service provider, to offer local America Online subscribers access through iTRiBE's Series 2000 service.

The new arrangement will let people who want to get America Online's content - but not its busy signals - log onto the Internet through iTRiBE. The user could then go out onto the Internet and locate America Online.

Digital City Hampton Roads, an America Online affiliate, is owned by the Tribune Co., which owns the Newport News Daily Press.

iTRiBE expects as many as 5 percent of America Online's 50,000 Hampton Roads customers to jump to iTRiBE, Marketing Director Peter Cousin said.

America Online customers have had a hard time getting onto the nation's most popular online service since December when the company began offering unlimited usage for a flat rate.

America Online is gradually adding more capacity.

``Obviously, the accessproblems that are going to be taken care of first are in big cities like New York, Chicago and L.A.,'' said Digby A. Solomon, general manager of Digital City Hampton Roads. ``Norfolk is going to be pretty far down on the list.''

A person who wants to get to America Online through iTRiBE will pay $9.95 a month for America Online's content and $10 a month through a year-long service contract with iTRiBE. Service through America Online costs $19.95 a month.

iTRiBE itself is just completing an expansion of its access service. Several weeks ago, iTRiBE put a moratorium on signing up new customers. It put off new customers until the company could add 96 phone lines to maintain a ratio of 10 subscribers for each phone line, Cousin said.

iTRiBE also doubled its hardware and has 300 phone lines waiting on reserve, he said. The company is lifting the moratorium.

Digital City sought out iTRiBE because it was impressed that iTRiBE had been willing to restrict its growth to benefit its current customers, Cousin said.

``If we open the floodgates and too much comes too quickly, we'll shut it down or slow it down,'' Cousin said.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu