Telewest Offers Refunds for ‘Limited’ Service

Telewest will compensate users of its unmetered Internet
deal for the poor quality of the service over the last month.

While the news has been full of promises of unmetered
services from all corners this week, the operator has been
battling with the reality of unmetered access. Telewest’s
pay-as-you-go service is so popular that it has crippled parts
of the company’s network.

Customers of Telewest’s £10-a-month Surfunlimited service
will get £10 credit on their account. Customers of the firm’s
1p a minute pay-as-you-go service who have also been
affected will get £5 credit.

A Telewest spokesman said: “We have written to say sorry
for any delay and tell them that we’ll be crediting their
accounts.”

Last week, vnunet.com revealed that Telewest had stopped
signing up new customers after both its modems and
telephone exchanges became overburdened by demand for
the unmetered service.

Telewest said it will start activating new accounts “in a few
days”, but in reality it is likely to be a couple of weeks.

Customers looking elsewhere for unmetered access could look
to Supanet. The ISP said today that it will sign up 1000
customers for a totally unmetered service and pay them £10
for doing so. Registration starts on Monday 13 March at
www.supafree.com.