Internet Ventures Sees Opportunity in Linking Locals to Web

Don Janke, president of Los Angeles-based Internet Ventures, said he isn’t inclined to do business in large, cutthroat markets such as the Internet service provider’s hometown.

Given the business strategy, it’s not surprising that Janke and other officials with the company have found the smaller, friendlier confines of Ventura County--specifically the western portion--a nice place to launch some of their services.

Internet Ventures recently teamed with Ventura’s Avenue TV Cable to introduce its PeRKInet Internet access service, under the name HarborLink Internet. The system uses existing cable lines to provide high-speed Internet access to subscribers of the cable company at a cost of nearly $60 a month.

HarborLink also provides service over normal telecommunications lines to other portions of Ventura County.

“Our strategy is to focus on markets under 500,000 [population], and Ventura County--Oxnard, Camarillo, Ventura--fits right into that,” Janke said. “Our mantra is, ‘You won’t find us in L.A., Chicago or New York.’ We love Ventura. There’s a different approach to things in the bigger markets. It’s a blood bath as far as competition.”

Internet Ventures provides online service to clients in other relatively small towns: Eureka and Stockton in Northern California; Spokane, Wash.; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Grand Junction, Colo.; and Medford, Ore.

Janke said company officials intend to convert those systems, which currently operate over more common telecommunication lines, to television cable lines in the near future. And he said future markets may follow.

One of the keys to the company’s success in Ventura County and the other markets, Janke said, will be to promote high-speed Internet access.

To disseminate the information, Internet Ventures last month purchased ComputorLink magazine, a computer news and feature monthly that was previously owned and distributed in the Northwest by Spokane-based ComputorLink Publications.

Internet Ventures plans to debut its new acquisition in Ventura County at the beginning of September.

“This is an undeveloped market,” Janke said. “One of the steps we felt we needed to do is begin to present local residents with a comprehensive monthly publication that talks about technology from the standpoint of ‘How do I use this stuff?’ ”

ComputorLink magazine offers tips and general information for computer users of varying experience. After the Ventura County edition is up and running, it will include listings for local user groups, Internet bulletin boards, a calendar of computer-related events and other community information.

Janke said the publication--which will be distributed through computer businesses, electronics stores and related shops, should increase the general public’s digital awareness.

“In looking at Ventura, it has one of the higher penetration rates of PCs in the home, but it does not have a high penetration of online Internet subscribers,” Janke said.

“We see this as an area that has increased in high-tech companies and is also driving distance to the west San Fernando Valley, where there are also high-tech companies,” he said. “Maybe these people have never seen the full reason they should take their own PC and connect [to the Internet] rather than just connecting to the server at work.”

Cindy Mastri, PeRKInet coordinator for Avenue TV Cable, said customer response has been strong since the cable service began offering Internet access in May.

“People have been wanting it because of the increased speed,” Mastri said. “We sell it like we would sell any premium channel. A few of our customers did not have cable before and they have gone to cable to have this option.”

Mastri said a main drawback to providing Internet access capabilities, for some cable companies, is the limited channels available. Avenue TV Cable, she said, uses a channel that would not have been used for television broadcasts.

Other cable operations probably will follow the trend, she said.

“It’s 10 times faster than you can do through the phone [line],” she said. “As the Web gets more and more sophisticated, speed is very important.”