Not one to miss out on any mass market, Wal-Mart Stores is getting into the Internet service provider game. The bargain retailer will team up with America Online to create a co-branded ISP, the companies announced Thursday.

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The ISP will be aimed at customers in smaller towns and rural areas who lack Internet connections due to poor or nonexistent ISP service, AOL and Wal-Mart announced in a joint statement.

The name for the ISP, its release date, and the companies did not disclose financial terms of the deal. The service itself will be a customized version of AOL's CompuServe package and will include the AOL Parental Controls option, Wal-Mart and AOL said.

The strategic alliance between Wal-Mart and AOL will also include a Jan. 1 re-launch of a newly designed Wal-Mart.com shopping site that will be available on the Internet and on AOL's "Shop@" areas, as well as a print, radio, and television promotional campaign by Wal-Mart for both the new ISP and AOL.

Along with in-store promotions, Wal-Mart has agreed to distribute AOL 5.0 software to customers.

America Online Inc., in Dulles, Va., is at www.aol.com. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in Bentonville, Ark., is at www.wal-mart.com.