David Watson, a spokesman for the company, said: “It’s costing
us money, but we see it as a stepping stone to move customers up
into the broadband offerings we will be introducing through DSL
technology and satellite.”
The cost of the service to the ISP is largely due to problems
securing the BT wholesale Friaco service. It is unlikely that World
Online will continue its current business model unless wholesale
Friaco is available to it by early 2001. When it is available,
World Online will no longer need to pay per-minute line costs to
BT. The same problem has caused other ISPs to abandon unmetered
access services.
Ezesurf, which launched a similar service last year, went into
voluntary liquidation yesterday. AltaVista UK’s Managing Director
resigned this week following the failure of the company’s unmetered
service to launch. LineOne and Callnet0800 are stopping unmetered
services this month and Virgin Net has shelved its plans for such a
service.
