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Microcap & Penny Stocks : XSNI - X-Stream Network -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: donkeyman who wrote (2372)	7/26/1999 3:35:00 PM
From: Troutbum	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3519

From BBC Online: bbc.net.uk Features The Internet For Free Listen here It has been a long held aspiration of Internet users that the Internet would be free. Virtually all the information on the Net is available without charge, although some sites will charge a fee to visit them. Until recently, if you had the equipment - a computer and the relevant software - you had to pay for an Internet Service Provider to give you access to the Internet and a phone company to connect you to the ISP. These costs were around £10 pound - £15 pound a month for the ISP and around 1p a minute at the weekends and 3p a minute during weekday time for the phone costs. As any hardened Web Surfer will tell you - the costs mount up ... and fast. The in 1998 a London company using Canadian software, set up the first Internet Service Provider which did not charge for net access. X-Stream funded their service through advertising. This started a trend that was to reach its zenith when Freeserve was launched in September 1998. By March 1999 around 10,000 people a week were signing up for internet access through both pay for and free services - according to a National Opinion Poll. X-Stream celebrated their first birthday by offering free telephone calls. The company told .radio that they would continue to offer free calls on occassions. However the calls were not really free - somebody had to pay for them and that somebody was X-Stream. But how do the pay-for competitors feel? One of the first Internet Service Providers were Demon Internet. They told .radio that while they welcome the free services, the pay-for services invest more in their technology and are a more reliable service. The free services do not necessarialy agree with that assessment. And most importantly what about the users? We spoke to several who simply had problems getting the free services to work at all. There were reports of engaged signals when trying to sign on. However not all were unhappy. Once a service was operating, they were fairly pleased with what they got. It is hard to know exactly the number of free services that are currently available but visit our Links page to find some Web Sites that assess the free services that are currently available. The major advantage with the free services is - if you don't like one, you can move easily to another. What is your view on free ISPs? Let us know, write to dot.radio@bbc.co.uk - your views may appear on this page.