The Guardian: Transforming the net economy
Guardian Unlimited editor David Rowan on the future for UK net users after AltaVista's free use announcement
It's eight months now since an internet revolution began when Freeserve's share flotation brought home to Middle England that the internet might not be about nerds and porn after all. AltaVista's announcement that for £30 a year you will be able to surf without further expense is the second part of the shake-up begun when Freeserve showed that internet service providers (ISPs) need not actually charge subscribers money. And this time even your technophobe uncle is likely to warm to the medium.
The internet economy will be transformed by this second stage of barrier reduction. Once we get used to the idea of free unmetered web access and stop seeing time online as an expensive luxury, to be taken only in short bursts, daily home usage of the net will quickly spread far beyond the enthusiasts. E-commerce will prove that it can deliver, and content-providers will reach a far more mainstream audience. If the only losers are a number of smaller ISPs, and the profits of telecoms firms such as BT, then there will be few tears shed among the cabinet ministers, newspaper editors and web entrepreneurs who have long campaigned for cheap or free web access.
A Mori poll last week suggested that people in this country would spend four times as much time online if they did not have to pay phone charges. You can see why free local calls in the US (albeit backed by other charges) have quickly turned the web into a mainstream medium, with around twice the number going online as in the UK. This latest move, which is bound to be copied by other ISPs (Lycos is rumoured to be next, with reports that an announcement is imminent), is bound to transform the UK internet economy.
Once the expectation of free surf time is created, there will be no going back - even if the advertising revenue and e-commerce opportunities predicted by AltaVista do not immediately materialise to cover the extra costs. Perhaps much of the company's strategy relates to a desire to raise its profile before an impending share offering. Whatever its motives, it will have succeeded in forcing the hand of BT where our weak telecoms regulator, and our recently outspoken chancellor, have failed. We should all be grateful.
There are some risks. This is going to be a hugely popular offer - and not every ISP has been able to deliver on the hype of its recent low-cost offerings. Last week Telewest suspended registrations for its £10-a-month 'SurfUnlimited' tariff - which offered free unmetered calls - after access problems led industry publications to damn it as 'SurfVeryLimited'. A number of earlier freephone-based offerings from smaller ISPs proved problematic for networks that could not cope with the demand. AltaVista says it will limit subscriber numbers to 500,000 at first to ensure that it can cope - but bad press spreads more quickly than good press, and the world will soon know if a significant number of its customers have problems getting online.
Now all we need is a strategy from a mobile-phone operator to pledge free wireless internet access. If mobile web access meets the sharp rises in take-up that the industry predicts, it will be the Vodaphones and the Oranges of the future that will affect our web behaviour as much as, if not more than, the cables connecting us to the wall.
(The Guardian, March 6, 2000)
Read more!
It's eight months now since an internet revolution began when Freeserve's share flotation brought home to Middle England that the internet might not be about nerds and porn after all. AltaVista's announcement that for £30 a year you will be able to surf without further expense is the second part of the shake-up begun when Freeserve showed that internet service providers (ISPs) need not actually charge subscribers money. And this time even your technophobe uncle is likely to warm to the medium.
The internet economy will be transformed by this second stage of barrier reduction. Once we get used to the idea of free unmetered web access and stop seeing time online as an expensive luxury, to be taken only in short bursts, daily home usage of the net will quickly spread far beyond the enthusiasts. E-commerce will prove that it can deliver, and content-providers will reach a far more mainstream audience. If the only losers are a number of smaller ISPs, and the profits of telecoms firms such as BT, then there will be few tears shed among the cabinet ministers, newspaper editors and web entrepreneurs who have long campaigned for cheap or free web access.
A Mori poll last week suggested that people in this country would spend four times as much time online if they did not have to pay phone charges. You can see why free local calls in the US (albeit backed by other charges) have quickly turned the web into a mainstream medium, with around twice the number going online as in the UK. This latest move, which is bound to be copied by other ISPs (Lycos is rumoured to be next, with reports that an announcement is imminent), is bound to transform the UK internet economy.
Once the expectation of free surf time is created, there will be no going back - even if the advertising revenue and e-commerce opportunities predicted by AltaVista do not immediately materialise to cover the extra costs. Perhaps much of the company's strategy relates to a desire to raise its profile before an impending share offering. Whatever its motives, it will have succeeded in forcing the hand of BT where our weak telecoms regulator, and our recently outspoken chancellor, have failed. We should all be grateful.
There are some risks. This is going to be a hugely popular offer - and not every ISP has been able to deliver on the hype of its recent low-cost offerings. Last week Telewest suspended registrations for its £10-a-month 'SurfUnlimited' tariff - which offered free unmetered calls - after access problems led industry publications to damn it as 'SurfVeryLimited'. A number of earlier freephone-based offerings from smaller ISPs proved problematic for networks that could not cope with the demand. AltaVista says it will limit subscriber numbers to 500,000 at first to ensure that it can cope - but bad press spreads more quickly than good press, and the world will soon know if a significant number of its customers have problems getting online.
Now all we need is a strategy from a mobile-phone operator to pledge free wireless internet access. If mobile web access meets the sharp rises in take-up that the industry predicts, it will be the Vodaphones and the Oranges of the future that will affect our web behaviour as much as, if not more than, the cables connecting us to the wall.
(The Guardian, March 6, 2000)
Read more!
posted by David Rowan at Monday, March 06, 2000
