Free-for-all net access shrinks in hunt for cash

Freenet first offered unlimited access, then 10 hours a month and now 3 1/2 hours a month. PETER GRIFFIN reports that, increasingly, users must pay.

New Zealanders' access to free internet services has been dealt another body blow.

Internet services provider Freenet has cut its 10 hours of free internet access a month to just 3 1/2 hours a month.

Until Friday, Freenet's subscribers will continue to receive 10 hours free internet access a month; then there will be a charge of $14.75 for internet use. .

After that, the price will not change, but the reduction in free access is likely to hurt low-use internet users.

And while Freenet tries to make its service economical to run, the beleaguered company is dealing with the embarrassment of falling victim to website hackers for the second time.

On Sunday night, Freenet's mail server (mail.free.net.nz) was hacked into and its webpage defaced with anti-US Government slogans.

The attack - which also railed against Poizonbox, a hacking group associated with Project China, the organised group involved in an escalating cyberwar with Chinese hackers - suggests that Freenet has become the first New Zealand site to be drawn into the wider Sino-American political row being fought out on the web.

In January, a website hacking group known as Primesuspectz exploited a security hole in Microsoft software, defacing the local site of printer maker Epson, a site hosted by Compass Communications, Freenet's parent company.

Karim Hussona, chief executive of Compass Communications, was not able to explain how hackers had been able to gain access to the Freenet site, which was restored to its original condition on Monday morning.

He was also at a loss to know why the site had been targeted.

"There's an ISP in the states called Freenet.

"Maybe they thought we were one and the same," he said.

Freenet is blaming economics for the company's decision to reduce its free services, and for the difficulties of making the service pay since a change in interconnection agreements between the telecommunications network operators.

"We weren't able to maintain 10 free hours and still provide a decent service," Mr Hussona said.

"You can provide a decent service with a high modem ratio and good bandwidth - or you can wind it down and try to squeeze it into the revenues that you get.

"In the past, when it was funded by interconnection, it was easy to make money out of it.

"Now the customers have to pay for it," he said.

Internet service providers such as Freenet, Zfree and i4free used to derive most of their income from termination payments made by Telecom to Clear Communications for data traffic passing from the Telecom network to the Clear network.

The payments generated an estimated $40 million a year. But that dried up at the end of last year when the interconnect agreement between Clear and Telecom was re-negotiated.

Clear-owned Zfree claims to be the biggest provider of unlimited free internet, but it stopped taking new subscriptions in December when it its user base reached 250,000.

Freenet initially reduced its internet services in January, cutting its free unlimited monthly internet access service to 10 hours.

About 50,000 users had signed up for the free service. Of those between 15,000 and 20,000 have switched over to the limited service.

Mr Hussona said take-up of the service was higher than expected.

Despite the drop in free internet access time, the service was still the best on the market.

"We think it's still pretty competitive.

"We're the only company around still taking subscriptions to a free service."

Links


Freenet

Zfree

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