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America Online dolled up its new broadband service and strutted it along the red carpet when it kicked off a series of new ads promoting the enhanced high-speed offering during the broadcast of the Academy Awards Sunday night.

AOL is set to roll out a dressed-up version of AOL 8 for Broadband on March 31, in hopes of adding some razzle-dazzle to its broadband subscriber numbers. Although the Dulles, Virginia, Internet service provider has over 35 million subscribers worldwide, the majority are dial-up users.

"This is a new and differentiated offering," AOL Broadband head Lisa Hook said on Monday.

New Features

The new service emphasizes security, with a firewall and parental controls, and offers advanced e-mail features, expanded content, and an increased ability for users to share content, Hook said.

In addition, the company will run a promotion for existing narrowband subscribers to switch to the company's bring-your-own-access broadband service, charging $10 a month for the rest of the year--$5 less than the normal rate.

When the company launched its AOL 8 service late last year, AOL head Jon Miller laid out what he said was a "clear and unwavering" broadband strategy, emphasizing how important it was for the financially challenged company to tap into the high-speed market to spur AOL's growth.

User Demand

However, Hook said that the new service was not an effort to shift its narrowband subscribers to broadband, but rather to "move with its members."

Hook cited subscribers' increased desire for news, radio, and on-demand access to information.

"We're starting to see subscribers use broadband like a newspaper--demanding one-click access," she said.

The new service boasts the highly anticipated AOL Communicator feature, which sits on a user's desktop and allows users to monitor and check their e-mail while they do other tasks.

The service also includes expanded news content, such as a live feed from ABC News on the war in Iraq, as well as Instant Greetings and the ability to share radio stations with other users.

According to Hook, these improvements are just the beginning of the broadband offerings that the company has in store.

"This is not a company that is putting one product a year into the market anymore," she said. "You'll see continuous improvements."

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