The good news for fans of Ma Bell is that AT&T Corp signed up more than 150,000 new customers for its WorldNet Internet access service in just nine weeks. The bad news is that the Wall Street Journal was prepared and greeted the news with a piece that showing no mercy and pointing out that every aspect of AT&T’s Internet operation has been overwhelmed by the demand, making the whole affair a thoroughly irksome experience for would-be customers. No fewer than 600,000 are queuing impatiently to get signed up for the service, which offers five free hours a month of Internet access. AT&T also only has only 200 Internet access points, which means that anyone not close to one of these has to make a long-distance call, on which the charges soon start racking up. Tempted to try MCI Communications Corp instead? Don’t bother – the experience is said to be little better – and it only has 120 access points for the whole United States.
