The service, which went live on Tuesday 18, May trumps US rivals Yahoo! and Google, which have announced plans for similar services, and Google has announced beta tests of a 1Gb service but neither has been able to confirm when they will be available.
The portal said that Lycos Mail Personal 1Gb is ad free with anti-spam and anti-virus software, and fully secure. The service will cost 拢3.49 per month.
At the launch of the new service, all existing customers using Lycos paid-for services will be upgraded for free: the Lycos Mail Max service will double its storage capacity from 50Mb to 100Mb and existing Lycos Mail Personal will be expanded to 1Gb. Lycos Mail Free remains at 10Mb of storage.
Alex Kovach, Lycos European vice president, said: "We are delighted to be the first to offer our Lycos email customers and internet users a 1Gb service. We will be interested to see when our competitors can offer the service that we already provide with a sustainable business model to underpin it. But size is not all that matters.
The combination of storage capacity and customer protection will spearhead our drive to produce high-value subscription services and attract new customers."
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