As we all know, the best things in life are free: the sun in the morning, the moon in the evening … and now, access to the Internet.
Hard on the heels of the free PC movement, the free ISP phenomenon is hitting its stride both sides of the Atlantic as
the Net continues to rewrite the rules of commerce [www.d128.com/features/isp.html]
In the funhouse mirror of Web economics, Freeserve
[www.freeserve.net/cserve/about.htm], unprofitable online experiment of British appliance chain Dixons [www.dixons.co.uk/prd.i/pgen/dixons/0L/welcome.html], in July ballooned to a worth of £3 billion on day one of its IPO just 10 months after launch.
But on the Net 'free' often means 'freeish' – subscribers to Britain's first and largest 'free Internet' provider must still pay local call charges, and the help-line costs a whopping 50p per minute.
Apart from that, it's quite a deal:
* No registration or subscription charges
* Free unlimited e-mail addresses
* 15MB of free web space
* Free online e-mail support
Launched last September to boost Dixons' PC sales at a time when only 5% of Britons were online, Freeserve quickly portalised itself and roared past AOL's 600,000 subscribers to rack up some 1.7 million of its own.
The former champ was forced to offer its own free service, joined by non-traditional providers like Microsoft, BT and an opportunistic army of banks, retailers and media companies - including the BBC, which enraged everyone else by launching Freebeeb.net in conjunction with Scottish Telecom (owners of subscription-based UK ISP, Demon).
One, X-Stream [www.x-stream.com], raised the stakes by picking up the tab for local phone charges to create a wholly free, advertising-driven service.
Suddenly, Net access in Britain has become one of life's basics - a sort of natural right, like water, or electricity, or trial by your peers – just as Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Internet, predicted three years ago: "[Soon], people will stop talking about the Web as an application…it'll just be something you take for granted, information-space… "
Freeness, the Net Disease, is a communicable madness. It quickly infected Europe as State-owned telcos like Spain's Telefonica looked to boost network traffic. Soon, previously sane US companies took their eyes off the bottom line and fecklessly followed the Old World's lead.
AltaVista, Freei.net [www.freei.net] and NetZero [www.netzero.net] led the charge. NetZero articulates the philosophy of the freewheelers: "Since no one owns the Internet, we don't think anyone should pay for it… just like TV and radio which are free, NetZero's free Internet service is made possible by advertiser support. When you sign up to NetZero, we ask you to complete a confidential profile [which] ensures the ads match your interests…"
When users log on to NetZero, a small window, the 'ZeroPort', appears on-screen to nudge them in a direction the advertisers want them to go.
In response, MSN abruptly slashed its monthly access charges to $US6…
But certain wreckage on the shoulder of the information superhighway offers mute warning to the newcomer. Cyberfreeway of San Francisco, @Bigger.net of San Jose, Cincinnati's Tritium Networks – all crashed and burned a year or two back when advertising failed to cover costs; it hasn't got any easier since.
Across the Tasman, National Australia Bank's customers were last week offered a curious mutation: in partnership with Melbourne provider Freeonline [www.freeonline.com.au/corporate], the bank will provide unlimited free ac-cess to over 3000 specific websites, plus 75 hours a month free to the rest of the Net. Above that, charges click in.
It was quickly followed last Friday by Wollongong's Free Net, which promised unrestricted free access from November of a quality "equal to or greater than" that provided by OzEmail or Telstra's BigPond.
Here at home, Clear Communications is promising to pick up the tab if Telecom succeeds in its proposal for a 2¢ per minute charge on local dial-up data connections. But when I rang round, there was a feeling among local ISP's that in general the idea may not be a goer here, given the size of our market.
Well, we'll see. Because suddenly… bingo! One of our smaller, more dynamic ISP's confided they're working on a free access service to be launched before Christmas…
You heard it here.
BookMarks
MOST MILLENNIAL [1]: America's Cup 2000
It seems like only yesterday that Dirty Den was dissing us. Now we're tacking towards the start-line of the 30th regatta and the Louis Vuitton Cup [October 18th] as the official site goes live. All and more that we've come to expect from Quokka Sports in pre-race coverage, as Auckland welcomes the Class of 2000…
Advisory: new 'Raceviewer' promises on-the-water immediacy.
www.americascup.org
MOST MILLENNIAL [2]: Y2K Paradise
As the world falls dark and silent and the loo won't flush and looters riffle through your CD collection, a lucky few will sip champagne in some idyllic hideaway far from the "negative effects of Y2K". Where? Here. Visionary entrepreneur Andre Illemann's 'Paradise Plan' [20th December to 31st March] involves a roster of New Zealand's plushest mansions, fully staffed [including gourmet chef], with guaranteed power, water, sewage and luxury vehicles. 1200 of the rich and timid expressed guarded interest after a recent Wired article, Illemann told me, but no confirmed bookings yet…
Advisory: at $US200,000, you'd need to be frothing at the mouth with millennial hysteria…
www.y2kparadise.com/frymainhtm.htm
Comments: petersinclair@email.com
As we all know, the best things in life are free: the sun in the morning, the moon in the evening … and now, access to the Internet.
Hard on the heels of the free PC movement, the free ISP phenomenon is hitting its stride both sides of the Atlantic as
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