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Personal Tech

The buzz

By Staff and wire reports
Published April 3, 2006

MSN cuts price on its dial-up service

Microsoft Corp.'s MSN is making an aggressive bid to take dial-up Internet subscribers from America Online Inc., saying it would cut the price of a service that has been dwindling in popularity. Microsoft's price cut, to $17.95 a month from $21.95 for a dial-up service that includes free e-mail, parental monitoring and photo services, is a sharp departure from AOL's strategy of pushing dial-up customers to switch to broadband. AOL recently said it would increase the monthly fees it charges its dial-up subscribers by $2, to $25.90.

Sprint Nextel Corp. has begun offering a local directory service that will help cell phone users find directions to restaurants, movie times and other information to expand the wireless services it offers. The Find It subscription service, developed by InfoSpace Inc., is available on more than 20 Sprint and Nextel phones. The service uses global positioning systems, or GPS, and other technology to determine where the caller is and then give directions to a local destination. The service costs $2.99 a month.

Yahoo Inc. will halt a monthly subscription service that provides antivirus software, expanded e-mail storage, online music and home pages after it failed to gain popularity. Yahoo Plus, which cost from $3.95 a month, will be discontinued April 22. The Yahoo Plus tools will continue part of the company's high-speed Internet access service through agreements with companies including AT&T Inc.

For tech news throughout the week, join Times technology editor Dave Gussow at the Tech Times blog (www.sptimes.com/blogs/tech) We invite you to join the discussion by posting your comments and questions. Also, for more on the video game scene, check out Josh Korr's video game blog (www.sptimes.com/blogs/videogames)

[Last modified April 4, 2006, 11:53:02]