After several false starts, 1999 will likely be the year when Chicago-area computer users will be able to buy high-speed connections to link their home computers to the Internet.
Of course, phone and cable TV executives said the same thing last year, but this time it’s for real, experts say. That’s because many companies poised to launch high-speed service here will either do what they say, or they’ll have no business at all.
Ameritech Corp., the Chicago-based dominant local phone company, had promised to launch widespread high-speed data services to residential neighborhoods last summer, but it held off largely because of concerns about federal regulations that will apply to such service. Ameritech hopes to get clarification on those regulations from the Federal Communications Commission in February.
But even if Ameritech still holds back from an all-out launch of digital subscriber lines, or DSL, service, several competitors say they will be offering their own versions of the technology that boosts the ability of copper phone lines to carry data by a factor of 50 to 100 over traditional modem connections.
NorthPoint Communications Inc., based in San Francisco, has already begun to offer DSL service in some parts of Chicago and is rapidly expanding its coverage area here, said Michael Malaga, chief executive.
NorthPoint targets business customers rather than residences for DSL, but about 20 percent of that business service focuses on providing high-speed data lines to employee homes for telecommuting, Malaga said. Also, NorthPoint plans to begin offering consumer DSL service in the near future.
“One thing that had been holding up consumer DSL was the lack of universal technical standards,” Malaga said. “But those have just been adopted.”
In November, MCI WorldCom said it would deploy DSL connections in several major cities, including Chicago, early next year. Some customers of this service will be America Online and EarthLink, two Internet service providers eager to offer residential customers high-speed links to the WorldWide Web.
On Chicago’s North Side near Lake Michigan, a new cable TV competitor, 21st Century Inc., has launched cable Internet service, and the incumbent cable TV carrier, Tele-Communications Inc., says it will soon roll out high-speed Internet services in part of the city and in some suburbs.
Several other fledgling companies, such as Dakota Services Ltd., based in Waukesha, Wis., are launching service in Chicago in the coming year, putting pressure on Ameritech to match their offerings or see some of its best customers walk away.
