NetZero, ThinkLink Reach Accord on Free Voicemail

NetZero in Westlake Village, which offers free Internet access services, has reached an agreement with ThinkLink to provide free voicemail to NetZero’s 4 million registered users.

The deal with San Francisco-based ThinkLink will give NetZero’s customers a Web-based messaging and communications center including voicemail, e-mail, fax, paging and 5-cents-a-minute calls anywhere in the continental United States.

“With ThinkLink’s technology, users will now be able to use NetZero as their communications infrastructure,” said Mark R. Goldston, NetZero chairman and chief executive. “Today’s typical Internet user has incoming and outgoing communications that include e-mail, voicemail, pagers, wireless phones, wireless Internet, regular phones, faxes--it’s almost too much to keep track of. ThinkLink offers NetZero’s users a one-stop, complete messaging center that consolidates voice and data messages into one location.”

The new services will be launched in phases over the next few months, officials said.

The first phase is scheduled to begin in June and will include free voicemail and low-cost calling for all NetZero users.

The second phase, which will include e-mail, fax and paging, is scheduled to launch later in the summer.