Yahoo! announced last November that they would be pairing up with SBC to offer co-branded DSL and Dial-up services. While the dial-up service launched last June, many in the industry were sceptical that the DSL offering would be available before the year's end. Yahoo! today put those concerns to rest by tearing into an advertising blitz and revealing the pricing plans and content details of the new Yahoo!/SBC/DSL mutations.

Yahoo's portal service puts the company in a unique position to tap into a massive customer base, something that's been tried before with a fairly loud whimper and some cheaply auctioned foosball tables as the end result. Analysts note that the advertising slump has placed Yahoo in a precarious position, requiring additional revenue streams to survive. Once Yahoo establishes itself as an reseller, it already has the architecture in place to deliver music, film, and a wide variety of content to users whose credit card numbers they already have on file.

Details of the service were briefly posted (then taken oddly off-line) at the future website this morning, and break down as follows:

Standard Plus offers connection speeds ranging from 384kbps to 1.5mbps for $29.95 a month for the first six months and $49.95 a month for the remainder of the year.

The "Deluxe" package offers connection speeds ranging from 768kbps to 1.5mbps for $39.95 a month for the first six months and $59.95 a month for the remainder of the year.

Both packages come under a twelve month contract, and Yahoo plans to incorporate a variety of content deals along-side the connection fees. Yahoo will roll in some of the e-mail services many people now pay for when using the portal's web e-mail services, such 110 MB of server space, 25 MB of e-mail space, 10 sub-user email addresses, and a backup dial-up account.

Subscribers will also have access to "premium service" packages, which offer various additional perks such as access to the site's "Games All-Star" pay per play service, additional web space, on-line bill payment services, and discount subscriptions to Encyclopedia Britannica.