Oceanic hooking up isle schools

Its parent firm, Time Warner, is investing $250,000 in Hawaii

Star-Bulletin staff

Time Warner Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Oceanic Cable, hope to have 300 public and private schools in Hawaii hooked up to free Internet service by this time next year.

Time Inc. President Richard Parsons was to announce the $250,000 program at a news conference in Honolulu today. According to Oceanic spokesman Kit Beuret, the schools will have free access to the company's new high-speed cable network and the Time Warner online service Road Runner.

Introduced here in November, Road Runner offers internet access plus multi-media enhanced news, sports, and other information published in Time Inc. magazines and CNN.

"Time is a great resource because it's the world's largest owner of copyrighted material," said Beuret.

Parsons and his wife, Dr. Laura Parsons, both University of Hawaii graduates, are vacationing here.

Oceanic's high-speed coaxial cable is 50 times faster than modems in common use today. It can download pictures, video and sound almost instantly.

The company has installed about 1,000 units in Oahu and has a waiting list of about 300, Beuret said. The service costs $39.95 - about double the monthly rate charged by other online providers. About 180 public schools in Hawaii are already hooked up to Oceanic's cable, Beuret said.