Wed October 1, 2003 06:45 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - SBC Communications Inc. SBC.N , the No. 2 U.S. local telephone company, on Wednesday said it cut the price of its high-speed Internet service by about 10 percent.
The company will charge $26.95 a month for customers who sign up through its Web site. The promotional price, which requires a one-year commitment, will be offered through the end of the year, an SBC spokesman said.

SBC and other telephone companies have slashed the price of their high-speed DSL (digital subscriber line) Internet access in hopes of sparking customer-growth and thwarting competition from Internet services offered by cable television companies.

The average price of Internet services over cable modems is about $44 a month, according to research firm Jupiter Research.

San Antonio, Texas-based SBC added 304,000 DSL customers, bringing its total to 2.8 million, up 60 percent from a year ago. That marked the sixth consecutive quarter of sequential DSL subscriber growth.

Continued @ Reuters