Southwestern Bell expands high-speed Internet to rural Oklahoma

Tuesday, April 11th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Seventeen rural Oklahoma towns and cities are the latest to be added to a high-speed Internet access service that legislators and officials at Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. say should give the areas an economic boost.

"This is a major improvement for those communities," House Speaker Loyd Benson, D-Frederick, said Monday at a news conference where Southwestern Bell demonstrated its new Digital Subscribe rLine high-speed Internet access service.

The "lightning-fast" service is already being installed in 22 other rural Oklahoma communities in a telecommunication expansion plan called Project REV, for Rural Economic Victory, said Jim Epperson, president of Southwestern Bell-Oklahoma.

"Maybe DSL can actually be a missing link for our state," Epperson said. DSL is up to 50 times faster than traditional Internet connections and permits customers to connect on demand 24 hours a day, without busy signals or delays.

"Oklahoma's rural economy will be revved up," he said.

"For businesses who are on the Internet, it's extremely important that that high-speed occur," Benson said.

High-speed Internet access also will benefit students, making it less necessary for them to move to bigger cities and states to get an education, Epperson said.

He said Southwestern Bell has committed $200 million to build the DSL network and it will be fully deployed by March 2001.

DSL is already available to customers of larger cities. The cost is $39 a month for orders placed this month but will rise to $49 afterward.

"We'll see what kind of appetite Oklahoma has for the technology," Epperson said.

The service is being installed in rural areas in response to suggestions from Benson and rural lawmakers.

"It's a great win-win situation," Benson said.

Expansion of the service follows approval of a new rule that will govern telecommunications companies in Oklahoma.

The proposal, reached between Southwestern Bell and the Corporation Commission in November, creates significant reform in the telecommunications industry and would give Oklahoma the strongest incentives in the region for new telecommunications providers to offer services in the state.

It would move the telecommunications industry from earnings to pricing regulation.

Among other things, the service will permit customers to use a single line for Internet access, faxing and telephone usage at the same time without the inconvenience of subscribing to a second line.