BellSouth Offers A Trifecta Of New Services

BellSouth Corp. last week rolled out a trio of advanced services. Its metropolitan area Gigabit Ethernet service is available in Atlanta and will be available early next year in cities in Florida and North Carolina. The service uses Gigabit Ethernet circuits on BellSouth's metropolitan area fiber-optic networks to link customers' LANs. Pricing is $2,000 for installation, plus $4,000 a month. BellSouth also is partnering with storage software vendor StorageNetworks Inc. to offer storage area networks, network-attached storage services, and data backup and restoration. It will be available starting next month in Atlanta; monthly prices start at $7 per gigabyte for basic backup. BellSouth's network-based voice services include common voice applications such as call-center automation and voice delivery of directory assistance and employee benefit-and order-status data. The voice apps will be available by the second half of 2002; pricing hasn't been determined.

Still, customers typically choose a local service provider on price, says Steve Hays, VP of IS at software developer G.A. Sullivan in St. Louis. BellSouth, he says, is often costlier than the competition.