Long-distance prices have plunged by as much as 70 percent, and new price wars are breaking out in Internet-access service.

They cite stiff competition from satellite television companies and partnerships that some of those businesses have formed with telephone companies to offer television, voice call and Internet-access service.

Inmarsat and some other network and service providers also offer options for Internet-access service only.

That's the delicious moral of Kara Swisher's first book, an entertaining account of America Online's 10-year, almost accidental stumble to prominence as America's most popular Internet-access service.

The growth largely came from business customers subscribing to more of MCI's existing services or buying new offerings like software, Internet-access services and paging.

She was hired to help write the server software needed to enroll paying customers in the company's new Internet-access service.

The provider of Internet-access services filed for the offering in February to raise money to acquire undersea and European land-based fiber optic cable capacity.

That threatens Deutsche Telekom's local phone business, but more vitally, its Internet-access service.

Tele-Communications Inc. said last week that it had begun selling its Internet-access service, @Home, to a potential market of more than 17,000 customers in Fremont, Calif.

Mr. Yuen said Pacific Century pursued HKT because it felt the company's assets, such as its high-capacity phone lines, would complement its nascent Internet-access service.