Microsoft, the software giant, and Verizon Communications, the biggest US telephone company, have said they would launch a co-branded high-speed version of Microsoft's MSN Internet service next spring.
The digital subscriber line broadband service, to be built on Verizon's network using phone lines to deliver high-speed Internet access, will offer customers a portal, or Web site, with exclusive broadband content, the companies said.
MSN is both a portal and an Internet dial-up service. Microsoft said the portal gets more than 270 million visitors a month, while 7.7 million people subscribe to the Internet access service.
Verizon, which has 1.4 million DSL users and capacity to serve 34 million, said it will market MSN as the preferred Internet service provider and portal for DSL customers.
MSN, which also has a five-year agreement with Denver, Colorado-based Qwest Communications International Inc. to jointly market MSN and Qwest's broadband access services, will now market Verizon as the preferred broadband provider for MSN, said Lisa Gurry, a product manager at MSN.
"Our goal is providing customers with only what they can experience on MSN," Gurry said.
A smaller alliance announced last month would bring MSN content and services, such as instant messaging, to Verizon Wireless' mobile phone subscribers.
The companies said the new MSN broadband service would cost a subscriber between $39.95 (26.64 pounds) and $49.95 per month.