The Best Way to ...
Use Your Broadband

Looking for something to do with that high-speed Internet connection? You're in luck. Media and entertainment businesses have been busily developing Web sites to meet surging demand for broadband features.

Some sites are free, but the best content isn't. For those willing to pay up, there are two ways to go. One is to go to individual sites that charge for news, sports or entertainment programming. The other is to sign up for a service that combines content from a wide range of sources. Here's a look at some popular high-speed Web sites:

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THE BEST WAY TO ... Use Your Broadband

Free Rides

For the sports fan, one of the best free sites is ESPN's (www.espn.com). One of the site's features, called ESPN Motion, is a collection of sports news programs, highlights and interviews. Commercials are interspersed, but, hey, what do you expect? It's free. The site also has hundreds of hours of commentary from ESPNRadio.com and highlights of ESPN's X Games. The one drawback is that it's spotty when it comes to highlights. For example, it offers virtually no NFL or pro-baseball clips.

Other free broadband sites offer a broad variety of music videos, movie trailers, videogame previews and other features. Ifilm (www.ifilm.com), offers short films, TV highlights and entertaining commercials. And subscribers to Movieflix.com can watch 1,600 mostly cult and grade-B movies and programs free. Or they can pay $5.95 a month for access to 1,400 other titles. Another good place to look is on the Web sites developed by cable networks. For example, Discovery.com has a "High-Speed Showcase" that offers games, educational programs and features like a passenger's-eye view of the country's scariest roller coasters.

Broadband users, of course, also can download music free of charge. But that's for people willing to risk a lawsuit from the recording industry. For those who aren't, there is a wide range of free radio and music-video services on the Web that don't allow downloading, like Yahoo's Launch (launch.yahoo.com). Also, several new legal music-downloading services are now available, like Apple's iTunes Music Store (apple.com/itunes), and Rhapsody (www.listen.com), which sell individual songs.

Most newscasts also cost money these days. CNN.com, for example, charges $4.95 a month for its NewsPass service, which offers up to 30 different video news stories a day and other features. ABC offers an even better deal for the same price with ABC News On Demand (ABCNews.go.com), whose offerings include recent editions of "Good Morning America," "World News Tonight," "Nightline" and "ABC Live," one of the Web's first 24-hour news channels.

Hollywood has moved more slowly in mining the broadband market, with not much to offer besides trailers and Movieflix's selections. About a year ago, a group of studios formed Movielink, which lets you download films for $2.99 to $4.99 each. But the site (www.movielink.com) has been criticized for having a limited selection and technical problems.

Playing Hardball

Sports sites have become among the most aggressive about charging for content. Major League Baseball has one of the most advanced fee services (MLB.com), with prices as low as 99 cents to watch live video of most of the games being played that day. Beware of blackout restrictions that prevent certain games from being viewed.

The NFL last season rolled out Field Pass, a $9.95-a-month service that includes live radio broadcasts of most games, video highlights and previews, and other features. But NFL fans don't necessarily have to sign up for Field Pass. Rather, they can subscribe to sites that offer a combination of content from sources including the NFL.

One of the best examples is AOL Broadband. For $14.95 a month, people who already have a high-speed connection can sign up for AOL, which offers them a wide range of broadband content, including NFL highlights and previews, about a half dozen news sources and a wide range of other sports and entertainment programs. Another popular service is RealNetworks' SuperPass, which costs $9.95 a month and offers a full range of sports, news, music and entertainment.

Meanwhile, Yahoo Platinum (platinum.yahoo.com) offers a more limited service that also combines broadband content from different sources. Its sports offerings consist mostly of auto racing, boxing and soccer. But Yahoo Platinum has the other sites beat with its reality-TV content.

--Peter Grant