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

well all I've got to say is that I spend so long on the phone ANY reductions would be brilliant.

My father recntly told me that Kingston-upon-Hull, UK has its own telephone network due to a forward thinking town council years ago. Is this true? Does anyone live in Kingston and can verify for me?
I am quite amazed/impressed by this. It doesn't take much.
Do people in Kingston get free local calls? (The conversation with my father stemmed from one about free local calls in the USA and how this affects netgrowth). It is possible that Dad told me, but I was so blown away by the revelation that I've blacked it out.

Please enlighten!

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we must remain vigilante. NO researcher or casual browser must click on adverts. Maybe just maybe they will stop putting adverts into the guide then. Wait a minute what am I saying? These people aren't even from earth. They obey no logic that we might recognise. Do they have a planet we can bull-dose?

To summarise:
Yep, Kingston does have its own telecoms provider. Kingston Communications I believe they're called, and I think that they do offer free local calls (I can't be sure about that).
I think the point of the techno-babble earlier was that if companies start offering free calls, then people's usage of the phone changes. If you run a network where people pay by usage then you can get by with a lot less capacity (as not everyone is going to be using it at the same time). So, for example, if I've got a box that can route and handle five phone calls, I can probably support, say 15 customers and I'll be fine as long as not more than five of them want to use the phone at the same time.
If we switch to a free-call model however, people will tend to use the phone for longer and maintain connections even when they're not actually using them (especially for things like net access), therefore I suddenly can't support my 15 customers with my 5 user box as they're all using the phone all the time, so I have to buy lots more gear = much greater costs.
In the UK there's also the matter of Oftel regulation to consider. BT offering free phone-calls would be seen as uncompetitive (like the Times cutting their prices to try and drive their competitors out of business) and would be slammed down like a ton of bricks.

At least they're adverts for nice things like gorillas.

For what it's worth, I have ISDN and connect using a local number using the service I'm assuming was mentioned earlier on in this debate.

Having the first ten minutes free on ISDN means that I can set my PC to automatically get my e-mail twice a day, and use things like Electronic Yellow Pages and Directory Enquiries the way they were meant to be used.

You say "Unfortunately the abolition of all Local call costs would quickly lead to a collapse of the supporting network" - a good start would be for BT to take a similar line with local calls, so you get the first 10 minutes free. It's important to point out that this would never include 0845 numbers at this stage anyway.

Incidentally, the rules are that you get 10 minutes free off-peak, that you get only a certain amount per month, that you need to spend £x on non-local calls per month, that you pay via direct debit, etc etc. It's not quite as marvellous as it sounds, but it suits me.

Just a quickie:

F9 Internet offer free access (0800) at weekends, for a subscription equivalent to £9.99/month.

Downside: You have to pay annually, and the max call duration is 2 hours, but then you can dial in again immediately.

Upside: You don't need to change telecomms providers, and they support up to V90 on 0800, (and I think ISDN too - I don't have ISDN. :o( )