h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Commercials - an irritant. No cure. Self replicating. Have cyberspace - will post commercial.

I've deleted that post. As you can see, we take this kind of thing reasonably seriously.

Free local calls are the only way of making the net grow. At least minimum charges should be considered.

Removing the minimum call charge would be a bonus for ISDN users who would finally be able to take advantage of the quick connect times that this technology offers, useful for sending emails etc. Unfortunately the abolition of all Local call costs would quickly lead to a collapse of the supporting network. Freeserve may have over a million users but I truely doubt that they have sufficient rack mounts to have even 10% of those people connected 24 hours a day whilst maintaining decent service levels. Our national backbones do not have the capacity to handle this mode of access to any reasonable standard. Imagine, cut all the costs and give everyone ADSL. Even just 10 million people online would require a capacity of over 2 terrabits per second, a figure substantially more than is available at present. Broadband EHF radio networks using Bluetooth type technology could be a viable solution for this bottleneck.

I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about but a truly free internet service does appear to be the only way of really getting it to take off.

I haven't the faintest idea what you mean either. Will free access mean less money going out of my account? If so it appears to be a great idea. It's quite obvious this geek's aquired too many spondoolis.

Have you seen the new on-line service, Tempo? It's free to join and calls to it are free off-peak. Hurrah!

you can access the net for free using xstream they do isdn and 0800 phone number at weekends etc

Why would anyone want to connect to the Web 24 hours a day? What's life all about anyway?

Free local calls. Hmmm... Well, for one thing, it would reduce my monthly outgoings by about £70.
No-one is talking about 24 hour connection here, (afaict), but nonetheless, once you have been online for a few hours, chatting, editing web pages, and playing online games, the bill goes up and up and...

I heard that Tempo's terms and conditions include changing you telephone service provider. Some telephone service providers insist that you spend a certain amount per month and reserve the right to take up to this minimum even if you don't make the calls (one example was £10 - NTL). Look before you leap!

Troyski

Please could you give me their address as I cannot find them using search engins but sounds good. I tried x-stream today very good but took 50 od goes to log on

drom me a line at [email protected]

Here in the Netherlands almost 96% of the households have cable television as you all undoubtedly know it's possible to internet through a TV-cable. It means 24 hours online, broadband internet 1,5 Mbs down 512 Kbs up. and it saved me about 50 euro (or dollars what you prefer) monthly. My advise try to get one really fast; we share one cable modem with 4 computers so you could share as well with your neighbours.

Which all depends on your local cable company having a clue. Few of them do, certainly in this country. Last time a cable salesman knocked on my door, I asked about internet access. He said 'Yes, you can use your cable phone line with a modem'. Not what I meant. I scoured their literature, and the only mention of internet was in the small print, which said that their offer of free local phone calls to other cable subscribers did not apply to internet service providers.

I think what Scott Adams said holds: Cable companies will never overtake the established telecoms companies because all the people who work for cable companies were too stupid to be employed by the telecoms companies.

AOL have just announced that they are going to give people 0800 access but will charge £14.99 a month

There must be a catch

I think the only way we are going to see free local calls is if you pay an extra subscription or something forces it down. I thought one2one and the like were going to do it by offering off peak local calls but they haven't had the impact they should, as more people ask more suppliers will drop their rates. But remember someone has to pay for the infrastructure and BT's advertising!

I don't know if this is common knowledge but BT have been trialing ADSL in London for the last couple of months.

You can ask them to install it if your in the "right" postcode area of London, last time I asked it was a trial price of £30 per qtr and no online charges!

There is a catch - see the subject of this message.

Tim

Why then can they do they have free local calls in America, and have very quick connections?