IQ News: INSIDER - Into The Race

Jim Dodd, vice president for Sprint’s Internet Services, waxes about the mid-’80s era of ‘obtuse’ on-line navigation, replete with 10mhz computers, 2400-baud modems and an archaic search language peppered with an occasional ‘slash, slash.’





Today, access, rather than speed or protocols, is the biggest hurdle on the Internet. Sprint is banking on the answer to incessant busy signals with its fledgling Passport service. ‘The whole launch strategy was predicated on the single most important goal of delivering easy to use, highly reliable service’ says Dodd, a 14-year product and marketing manager veteran at the long-distance giant.





To its advantage, Sprint owns perhaps the most comprehensive fiber-optic network in the U.S.