By the end of this month, CCIT will begin a trial period to offer the university community direct, high-speed telephone access to the Internet.

The University of Arizona Center for Computing and Information Technology will provide 500 full-access Internet accounts for a six-month trial period, said CCIT's Edward Frohling, director of the project.

The trial connection is available to university staff, students and faculty, he said.

CCIT will use the trial time to determine how popular the service is and whether to abandon or expand it in the future.

The service, using 96 new high-speed modems and existing servers, is undergoing testing but is slated to begin the trial period by the end of the month, Frohling said.

The new connection will offer services such as graphical Web browsing, an e-mail system called Eudora and file exchanges, he said.

The package is similar to the computer network installed in the UA residence halls last semester, said Linda Drew, principal computing manager with CCIT user support.

"It's just like having an Ethernet connection on campus, except you're doing it through a phone and a modem," she said.

Ethernet is a network connection to the Internet.

According to the latest edition of Computing on Campus, CCIT's bi-monthly informational brochure, the service will cost enrollees $14.85 for 120 hours of monthly connect time.

There will also be a $25 startup fee to cover administrative costs such as paperwork.

The cost of the service may rise later, Frohling said, depending on how many people use it and how much it costs to provide user support.

Anyone interested in signing up can call CCIT customer service.

A local Internet provider, The River, offers a similar, 175-hour package for $19.95 with a $15 startup fee, according to a River customer service representative.

The Arizona Daily Star offers unlimited monthly usage of its StarNet Internet service for $20 a month with a $25 startup fee, but StarNet sometimes waives the startup fee for students.

To connect to the UA service, both IBM and Macintosh systems must have at least 8 megabytes of RAM and a 200-megabyte hard drive, CCIT's brochure states.