Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Wednesday, November 10, 1999
GTE drops some fees for Internet service
Hawaii is one of 17 states where GTE Corp. has waived the installation and start-up fees for its high-speed Internet service through the rest of 1999.The fees to connect to its Digital Subscriber Line, or DSL, service can run as high as $390, the company said today.
DSL uses electronics to increase capacity of ordinary copper phone lines, making data transmission as much as 25 times faster than today's best dial-up modems.
Until the end of this year, customers signing up for the service will have to pay only the $49.95 a month service fee.
The special modem will be installed free and the $50 charge to connect to an Internet service provider has been dropped.
Aloha Airlines to file on-time statistics
Aloha Airlines has chosen to file its on-time statistics with the federal government even though it is not required to do so, the interisland airline said.Only the top 10 U.S. carriers must hand their arrival and departure time records over to the Department of Transportation.
Glenn R. Zander, Aloha's president and chief executive officer, said however that there had been a complaint about the airline's advertising last year, which offered a free one-way ticket to any customer who did not travel on time.
The complaint, later settled, was based on the lack of official approval of the statistics and Aloha said it will start filing them in January because it is confident of its record.
Polynesian center wins recognition
The Polynesian Cultural Center's advertising has won the Laie attraction an Odyssey Award for excellence from the Travel Industry Association of America.The award, in TIA's domestic travel advertising category, was for the PCC's campaign with the slogan: "Why travel thousands of miles to visit Polynesia and then not really see it?"
The advertisements, featuring native Polynesians in traditional dress performing ancient rituals, appeared in tourist publications, in-flight magazines, wholesale travel guides and in one instance, on the wall of a hotel parking lot.