AOL eyes discount Internet service
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AOL will call the service Netscape and will charge$9.95 a month for unlimited dial-up access, the sourcesaid. That is a far cry from AOL's standard price of $23.90. The serviceis currently more of a concept than a developedproduct and will not be made available until early 2004,the source said.
Unlike current versions of AOL, the Netscape servicewill be a significantly smaller file download andwill lose many of the bells and whistles that are standardon AOL, such as its instant messaging software andchat rooms, the source said. 
News of the Netscape service was first reported in the online version of The Wall Street Journal.
For AOL, the launch of a new Internet service provider would be an attemptto address the current pressures facing the onlinegiant. For the past two quarters, AOL has watched the number of its core dial-up subscribers slip as members have defected to faster broadband services or to cheaperdiscount ISPs such as United Online's NetZero andJuno.
In the last quarter, AOL lost 846,000 members, some of them tobroadband or discount ISPs. The bulk of the lostmembers were people using AOL at discount prices andno longer counted as full-paying members.
Meanwhile, AOL has shifted its attention to thegrowing number of households upgrading their dial-up connections to broadband. Its latest version, AOL 9.0 Optimized, focuses on higher-bandwidth features, such as streaming video, spam filters, parental controls and enhanced instant messaging.
AOL is trying to sell version 9.0 as a $14.95-per-month add-onto people who are using an outside broadband servicebut want AOL's content. The company still sells broadbandaccess, but the business is not as profitable as itsdial-up service, given the expense of leasing digital subscriber lines.
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