[Sheflug] Re: [Gllug] Re: [LBC] Slightly OT: Callnet0800

["Robert J. McKay" <nospam [at] mckay.com>]

I think some ISPs (ezesurf), must be getting cheaper deals than that in
order to make it work. ie: fractions of a p rather than 1p/min or
whatever. Etheir that or they are running it on 0800 now with the
expectation that they will be able to move over to FRIACO and keep their
userbase and make a profit on that... not a very clever business plan as
they'd probably be able to get a larger signup base for less money by
advertising AFTER FRIACO was available.. having said that 0800 ISPs have
probably saved me in excess of #1.5K since they started so I'm well
pleased. I have a script keeping my 24-7freecall connection up 24-7 and it
also does updates to my DNS to keep my address in sync with my IP.
I've got ADSL on order at the moment though, so hopefully this nonsence
will all come to an end in a couple of weeks. :)

-Robert McKay.

On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Jason Clifford wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, French, Alastair wrote:
> 
> > Just in case any of you are / were with Callnet0800 as an ISP and were
> > having problems connecting to them (I believe it is a corrupt CLI database).
> > The Callnet0800 service is to be terminated. This is due to 'financial and
> > market pressures'.
> 
> Given the very high cost for terminating 0800 calls I am not surprised. I
> am rather surprised that anyone really believed that 0800 services could
> be a viable business proposition - they are simply too expensive to run. I
> worked out what it would cost UKLINUX NET to offer 0800 access based upon
> extremely generous rates from Telinco (our Telco). We'd have to charge our
> subscribers over 100.00 per month to cover our costs if we worked on the
> same user/modem ratio we now use. To get it down to 10.00 per month we'd
> have to run on a 50/1 user/modem ratio. Not a good way to do business I
> feel!
> 
> > It will be replaced by Callnet1p, yep you guesed it it
> > costs 1p per minute of peak and 2 p per minute peak. There is a 9.99 setup
> > fee for new customers and for old customers that do not convert by a certain
> > date. Given the relaibility so far, who wants to pay for a naff service with
> > no (or severly restricted) news feed and mai lthat gets delayed by days or
> > lost.
> 
> Alas, while we have to pay for transatlantic bandwidth for use by US isps
> (you are aware that US ISPs do not pay for international bandwidth) and
> our telcos are able to enjoy the benefits of virtual monopolies there
> is no way that any freecall ISP can maintain a vialble business for very
> long.
> 
> Personally I'd love to see reliable freecall ISPs. Currently I often use
> an 0800 service during the day (more likelihood of gettinga connection)
> but it's getting hard even when there are less users online and the
> interconnectivity is not exactly great!
> 
> Jason Clifford
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug [at] linux.co.uk
> http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug
> 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheffield Linux User's Group - http://www.sheflug.co.uk
To unsubscribe from this list send mail to
- <sheflug-request [at] vuw.ac.nz> - with the word 
 "unsubscribe" in the body of the message. 

  GNU the choice of a complete generation.