Corporate Net access options broaden

As the industry discovers the lucrative potential of the corporate Internet market, vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and UUNET Technologies are ramping up to offer corporate users a broader range of options for their TCP/IP-based networks.

Hewlett-Packard today announced a marketing alliance with America Online's ANS Internet backbone division to manage intranets for corporate users.

Corporate users are turning to intranets for building secure networks that let users access information through industry-standard Web browsers instead of custom client-server software that is expensive to build and maintain. But companies that want to connect scattered LANs in a single wide-area intranet have to build and maintain the WANs themselves.

Through its Managed Intranet Solutions (MIS) service, HP bundles 9000 Unix servers, TCP/IP-based WAN backbone infrastructure and management through ANS, and the support services provided by AOL technicians.

The company did not specify pricing or availability.

Many corporate users also want more flexible dedicated high-bandwidth access to the Net for their networks than are currently provided by their Internet service providers. UUNET Technologies today announced two new services in an effort to expand its range of dedicated Internet access options.

UUNET's new 10Plus service provides companies with 10-mbps access, while its Double T service offers 3-mbps access. Previously, UUNET had offered T1 and tiered T3 service, which requires more expensive network equipment than its new services.

"Tiered T3 service is pretty expensive, and there's this gap between T1 and tiered T3," a UUNET spokesperson said, adding that the company is "trying to fill the middle ground." All the UUNET services are available now.

Double T service costs $4,200 per month, and 10Plus service is priced at $6,000. Both require network equipment and start-up fees that cost roughly $3,000. In contrast, tiered T3 equipment costs between $50,000 and $60,000, UUNET said.