BT Internet Wednesday
sent a shockwave through the UK’s ISP industry by offering
weekend access to the Internet via a toll-free 0800 number.
The service, which until now BT had repeatedly denied it had
any intention of introducing, will begin at midnight on Friday,
June 4.
The toll-free Internet service will be available only to BT’s
Plan Unlimited customers who pay a monthly subscription of
£11.75 ($19).
Users will need to download special
“dialler” software which places an icon named “BT Internet
Free Weekend” on the desktop. Clicking the icon will only
work on weekends between midnight Friday and
midnight Sunday.
For the benefit of users, BT provides a set of Frequently
Asked Questions on its BT Internet registration page,
including the highly pertinent: “Can I stay connected all
weekend long?” The answer is “not quite.”
There
will be a time-out facility on the connection that drops
the line after 20 minutes of inactivity or two hours of usage.
Customers will be able to redial immediately to re-establish
the connection, but the time-out should effectively prevent
people from running Web servers on their dial-up connections.
It is widely expected that LineOne and other leading ISPs
will have to follow BT in offering a similar, or perhaps
more extensive, toll-free service.