EXCLUSIVE: MSN reveals broadband plans

 

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By Matt Whipp

Posted on 18 Sep 2002 at 17:34

Join MSN8, and friends.

MSN is planning to offer a broadband service in the UK according to Stuart Anderson, MSN Marketing Manager.

Speaking exclusively, Anderson said 'MSN will make an offering around broadband'. He said: 'It is important that we are a major player in that market.'

Although he would not reveal when broadband will be offered by MSN, 'a partner ISP' is already in place. It is possible that more details will emerge with the announcement of MSN8, which goes into beta next month.

It's no secret that the new MSN8 is going subscription based, but this is different. While MSN is an ISP in the US and Japan, over here it's just a Web portal. Microsoft will be charging for MSN8 on top of the fees charged for Internet access through ISPs.

Anderson couldn't tell us how much an MSN8 subscription will be, but reports suggest US users (who use the portal through another ISP) will pay less than the $14.95 that AOL charges.

Anderson said that MSN8 includes software from third-parties - above and beyond the parental controls and spam filtering capabilities that have already been made public.

The Hotmail storage that MSN recently called MSN Extra Storage and charged £19.99 a year for will be included as part of the MSN8 package. Anderson also said that driving punters to MSN8 won't mean charging for repackaging existing free services. Rather, users will choose MSN8 because of its 'additional content' although not a RealPlayer-style service, with its paid-for Superpass feature for 'premium content'.

'MSN8 customers are paying into new browser and email capabilities,' he said. This will include extra facilities such as photo-management and editing with email and expanding the capabilities of the new MSN custom browser to do more than surf the Net.