LONDON -- Britain's Virgin Group, whose commercial offerings range from airline travel to wedding dresses, is getting into the free Net-access business.
Company head Richard Branson said that Virgin Net Internet access service would offer its existing 150,000 subscribers free service beginning in April, and open the service to new customers in May, with the aim of hitting 1 million subscribers.
Virgin plans to invest 50 million pounds (US$82 million) to take all its businesses online -- from Virgin Atlantic to Virgin Bride -- by the end of this year. An expanded Virgin Net could help feed customers to those e-commerce sites.
Virgin Net is the latest entry into what's becoming a bandwagon of free Net access in Britain, following electrical retailer Dixons Group and supermarket giant Tesco.
The deal will require subscribers to pay the telephone bill for time spent online, like other free Internet service providers. But Virgin said it had signed a deal with UK telecommunications group NTL Internet that will offer subscribers a help line costing 1 pound ($1.63) a minute or 5.99 pounds ($9.75) a month.
Copyright© 1999 Reuters Limited.
