The CAIS content portal in hotels brings together the biggest names on the Internet - including Yahoo Broadcast Services (formerly Broadcast.com), eCal, Look Smart and others - within a single, customized, high-speed environment to captive eyeballs logging onto the CAIS broadband access service in more than 9,000 hotel properties.  The portal, initially being rolled out by CAIS to its hotel customers nationwide, will bring business travelers and hotel guests multi-media online business, financial, shopping, concierge and other services in one location that�s designed especially for them, and at broadband speeds.

�With the CAIS Portal, the first thing travelers will see when they log on at a CAIS-serviced hotel will be the fastest, most relevant portal ever created,�  said Evans Anderson, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing at CAIS Internet.  �While today�s travelers now call ahead to ask their hotels about gyms and other concierge services, CAIS can meet the demand for broadband access needs, and now top quality content services.  This service will become a new standard for hotels, and we think that those who provide it will enjoy a strategic business advantage.�

Besides offering guests a wide variety of services, the CAIS Content Portals will also be customizable, allowing hotel managers and chain owners to tailor the sites to serve their specific business and guests� needs.
�We want to give individual chains, and in some cases, even individual hotels, the ability to customize the look and feel of the site we are providing to their guests.  A New York hotel can have the look that suits its property as easily as one in Minneapolis,�  said Randy Achee, Vice President, Content and Broadcast Networks, CAIS Internet.

The portals will use CAIS broadband in-building access solutions that primarily do not require rewiring, and are powered by its IPORT-powered server and software.  The company offers a unique system that allows guests to obtain secure, uninterrupted high speed Internet connections up to 175 times faster than 56K dial-up connections - at the same time they use that phone line for standard voice calls.  CAIS currently has master agreements targeting installation of its system in more than 9,000 properties nationwide, or 1.1 million hotel/motel guest rooms.

�As we roll-out, hotel guests on the CAIS portals will have the ability to view video clips of movies from their rooms instead of just reading reviews.  They will be getting information and ordering services from an interactive concierge.  They will be shopping instantaneously in real-time, instead of waiting for orders to process - and they�ll be doing all of this over a single, standard copper wire line while talking on the phone at the same time,�  Achee said.

CAIS unveiled the prototype for the CAIS Portal that will appear in test properties, and will launch the product in hotel rooms in January 2000.  In addition, CAIS has plans to make its portal available to CAIS customers in apartment buildings, single family homes and businesses where the company also provides broadband Internet access services.  CAIS also delivers services to the end-user in businesses, airports, shopping centers, travel plazas, cruise ships, and other markets.

Affiliate CAIS partners providing content for the site include e-tailers like 1-800-flowers, barnesandnoble.com, ibaby.com, ebay, mapquest.com; news and weather outlets for up-to-the-minute information from CNET.com, and Broadcast.com, cbssportline.com; and business services like fax4free.com, officemax.com, and dozens of others.