FRESNO, Calif. - A self-proclaimed teenage computer nerd hopes a new company he's launched will become an online powerhouse - and he's got the backing of Microsoft to help him do it.

Mike Pronovost, 19 and a student at Fresno City College, is the chief executive of Powerband Internet, a company that promises its customers ultra-fast Internet speeds even with antiquated dial-up phone connections.

Pronovost said the idea sprouted while he was a student at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno. He believed one source of Internet slowdowns to be the speed of the connection - dial-up phone lines, DSL or cable broadband - between the computer and the Internet.

The head of another local Internet startup said he thinks Pronovost's enterprise could catch on, if it delivers on its promised speed and he's able to build a recognizable brand.

"I don't know anyone who doesn't want faster Internet speed," said Brendan Kane, president of Clovis-based Watchdoit.com, a Web site that features how-to videos produced and submitted by users. "What (Pronovost) does and how he works with customers will be the main selling point."

Pronovost said his idea caught the attention of industry giant Microsoft Corp., which is partnering with the fledgling company by providing financial, software and server-storage support and logistical support, including a huge datacenter of computer servers for storing data and information.

Pronovost provided e-mail correspondence between Microsoft and Powerband that confirms the connection, but a spokeswoman for Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., said the company was unable to comment on the partnership.

Microsoft is already a major player in the field of "cloud computing" - the nebulous term applied to computers using content and applications accessed through the Internet rather than stored on a hard drive - and remote-access content and software, crucial to Pronovost's plans.

Pronovost said he originally reached out to Microsoft for a partnership for software, "but when we told them what we're looking into, they wanted to help out with server-related stuff."

Internet connections as pipelines

To understand Pronovost's enterprise, try thinking about an Internet connection as a pipeline. Because a dial-up phone connection is like a small tube, only a small amount of data can flow at any given time. DSL and cable broadband offer bigger pipes, accommodating more data and faster flow.

But even bigger pipes can get clogged and data can slow down when it comes to downloading large files, like games or movies.

"What our software does is creates a 'virtual desktop,' so your Internet connection isn't used to actually download a file," Pronovost said. Instead, the file is stored "out there" on Microsoft's massive servers. So when a user logs onto his or her Powerband account, the Internet connection merely views the movie or runs the files - much faster than downloading.

Put another way: Downloading a 10-gigabyte movie file on a DSL connection takes about two hours, Pronovost said, or about 30 minutes on a cable broadband connection. As for dial-up - forget about it.

Downloading that movie onto a "virtual desktop," Pronovost said, would take about 10 seconds.

But unlike other Internet service providers, or ISPs, Powerband Internet customers must still have their own access to the Internet - that is, their own connection to the online world through their phone or cable company or through a dial-up service such as America Online, NetZero or Earthlink. Powerband's service is another $40 per month on top of that monthly Internet access.

Pronovost said as more Powerband users sign up, they'll form a growing "peer to peer" network of shared resources - files, programs and other material - that fellow users can search and access online without having to download them individually.

The file-sharing feature - a key selling point for Pronovost - also carries with it the danger of being abused by customers. Remember Napster, the free music-sharing site targeted by recording-industry lawsuits back in 2000 for copyright and intellectual property violations? That's a specter Pronovost hopes to avoid.

"Like Napster, this can be used extremely badly with the wrong technology," he said. "Right now we have a user agreement that holds each user accountable for copyrighted material. … The way we have it structured, there are only certain things people will be able to share. It's like an honor system among the users."

Kane, who launched Watchdoit.com last year, said Pronovost likely will face the same challenges as other start-ups in the hyper-competitive milieu of the Internet.

"One of the best things is having a recognizable brand name, that's getting over one of the first obstacles," said Kane, 28. "It's tough. Unlike a local store that competes only in a local area, the Internet is even more competitive. It all has to do with how easily they can find your site."

For now, Pronovost is running Powerband from his northwest Fresno home, with about 10 programmers working remotely at sites in Australia, India and the United States.