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Verio Launches New Net Service for Small Businesses

U.S. network will provide electronic commerce and Web site hosting services.

By James Niccolai, PCWorld   

Operating under the name Verio, the company combines the services and market presence of local ISPs with World-Net%squots nationwide backbone to offer turnkey packages for electronic commerce and Web hosting, as well as basic connection services, officials said.

Tiered services are available immediately, and range from basic 56-kilobits-per-second connections up to T1 and T3 dedicated lines for larger customers.

The 17 ISPs are located in the Northwest, California, Texas, the Northeast, and the Washington, D.C. area, spokesperson Steven Silvers said. Verio is in talks with other local service providers and expects to reach other areas of the U.S. later this year, he said.

%dquotWe%squotve preserved the names of the service providers and they will operate independently so they can competitively meet the needs of their local markets,%dquot Silvers said. Pricing for the services will be determined locally, but %dquotwe expect to charge a couple of hundred [dollars] a month for the low-end services, up to several thousand a month for high-end,%dquot he said.

Over time the ISPs will be renamed under the Verio corporate name, Silvers said. He added that partnerships with local service providers will make Verio more responsive and aware of local market needs than %dquotpurely national providers%dquot like UUNet Technologies.

Verio affiliates also will offer Microsoft%squots FrontPage, allowing customers to develop their Web site and then transfer it to a Verio provider%squots hosting service.

World-Net was founded in 1996 with the intent to combine with local ISPs and form Verio, which the founders have dubbed as the nation%squots first local Internet service provider that operates nationwide.