I did some digging into Gateway's announcement that, "It would provide free Internet service to customers who buy a PC costing more than $1,000." Here's what I found:
First, it is only free for one year, is not unlimited access, and could result in some whopping bills for families where a few people access the internet through the account:
>Under the Gateway offer, buyers of desktop, portable and other systems costing more than $1,000
>will receive 150 hours of Internet access a month through gateway.net. After the first 150 hours,
>users will pay $1.50 per hour for access.
source: biz.yahoo.com
Next, I went to Gateway's internet site to find local access numbers. When I could not find any, I telephoned Gateway and spoke with someone in technical support, who said the numbers were not listed there but he would look up numbers for me. He failed to find numbers for any of the four towns I gave him in four different states, MA, CT, NY, and PA.
The fellow told me people in these towns could use the toll-free 888 number. When I asked if there would be a charge [since a toll free number to access an internet provider often incurs an hourly charge] he said yes, and gave me the telephone number of the billing department to find out exactly what the hourly charge is. So far, I can not get through [busy].
Next, I asked him who Gateway was using to provide internet access. In case I was not phrasing things the right way, I told him that as an example of what I meant, Bell Atlantic contracts through IBM to provide their internet service. The fellow said Gateway uses Uunet--so I got into Uunet's web site.
Uunet's site does have an area to find local access numbers. Checking for some additional medium-sized U.S. cities and town, I again came up empty. Here is the URL for that page:
us.uu.net
Summary of my initial digging into Gateway's free internet offer: There are too many places in this country that do not have local access numbers to the IP. People who live in these areas who are unaware that "toll-free number" does not mean "no charge," the way it does for voice calls, and only buy a PC from Gateway working under the faulty assumption that they will be saving money [by avoiding IP charges for a year] will be screaming in outrage once they receive their first bill. Yes, I'm sure the 888 hourly charge will be stated in the documentation--but how many people today read all the information that comes with things? This offer could backfire.
It's my opinion that if a PC maker wants to hook customers by a free internet access offer, they should contract with an IP provider such as Prodigy or AOL, both of which can be accessed by a local number almost everywhere in the U.S. Limited local numbers spell problems.
Lynn |
