Europe's Net Surfers Unite to Fight for Lower Local Phone Fees
Paris, June 5 (Bloomberg) -- European Web users are fed up
with their phone companies -- and they're going to show it.
Internet surfers in 15 European countries are urging
colleagues to unplug their modems tomorrow and strike for cheaper
local phone calls so they can stay on line longer for less.
Unlike the U.S., phone companies in Europe charge by the
minute for local calls on top of monthly subscription fees,
adding up to $31 for 20 hours spent connected. Consumer groups
such as France's Internet Moins Cher and companies like America
Online Inc., the largest online service, want them to scrap that
system -- at least for calls to Internet service providers.
Eliminating the phone fees Internet users clock up online
is key for inciting Europeans to adopt the Web as a way to shop,
bank and communicate. It would also keep people online longer,
increasing revenue potential from advertising and electronic
commerce -- and making the Internet a tool to stimulate economic
growth as it has in the U.S.
''Until this meter-based system is removed, Europe won't
adopt Internet the way the U.S. has and we won't see the same
investment in e-commerce and explosion of economic activity with
its spill over effect,'' said David Phillips, president and
managing director of AOL/CompuServe U.K.
Such an initiative by Europe's phone companies could have
the same impact as AOL's move in 1996 to a flat monthly rate for
access to its online service, sparking a surge in usage. Within
three months, its U.S. clients stayed online 33 minutes a day,
up from 16 before the rate change. They now spend on average 55
minutes a day on line.
Usage
U.S. Internet users spend an average 27 hours monthly
online, AOL said, compared with around seven to eight hours in
Europe.
''To give Internet a chance to take off, we have to arrive
at lower phone charges,'' said Francois-Henri Pinault, chief
executive of Fnac, France's biggest book and music retailer
which is counting on expansion in Internet service will drive
growth and keep clients at its brick-and-mortar stores loyal.
To offset the cost of local calls, companies like Fnac have
started offering Internet access services for free to attract
users. That trend should push the number of European households
using the web to triple to 47 million by 2003, according to
market researcher Jupiter Communications.
Trailblazer Dixons Plc, the U.K. electronics retailer which
started the trend of free Internet access, signed up more than 1
million customers to its Freeserve service within months,
leapfrogging established rivals like AOL to become No. 1 in the
U.K.
Not Enough
That won't be enough, though, to make up the gap with the
U.S. in terms of the amount of time spent online. European users
will continue to spend as little as a fourth the time online
than their U.S. counterparts, if phone rates aren't cut, said
Noah Yasskin, an analyst at Jupiter Communications Inc.
''Free Internet access looks like it's going drive a lot of
additional people online, but the problem of low Internet usage
will remain,'' said Yasskin. ''If you have people using the
Internet a quarter as much, you're going to have a quarter the
revenue. Advertisers will really suffer here.''
To be able to surf freely without worrying about the phone
bill at the end of the month, ''Internautes'' from France to
Greece and the U.K. to Romania called the boycott for Sunday.
Participants will stay off-line and replace their Websites by
blank pages. Some will even refuse to use their phone at all.
The boycott, coordinated by telecom.eu.org, calls for the
introduction of flat-rate calls at least for local calls and
asks that all phone tariffs better reflect the cost of handling
them. It also urges companies to accelerate investment in
technologies which would offer more bandwidth, such as cable,
satellite and asymmetric digital subscriber line equipment.
Flat Rate
Internet Moins Cher in France, for example, wants France
Telecom, the former phone monopoly which still dominates local
phone service, to offer a flat rate of 100 French francs
($15.72) a month for 100 hours connected.
''It's high time that people stopped seeing Internet as a
toy and start seeing it as a technological window to resources
that will help combat unemployment,'' said Pierrick Rambaud,
head of Internet Moins Cher.
France Telecom, which is deciding whether to go ahead with
its proposal for a 100 franc monthly flat rate for 20 hours
connected, declined to comment ahead of the strike.
As regulators and governments across Europe struggle with
how to change phone tariff structures to stimulate Internet use,
one U.K. company is taking surfers demands seriously.
In April, Localtel, a reseller based in Surrey, started
offering clients free local calls to its screaming.net service
at off-peak hours in a bid to win customers away from British
Telecommunications Plc to its own phone service.
It worked. Within a month, 50,000 people had registered
with screaming.net, which it offers with retailer Tempo, and
signed up for its phone service at the same time.
By contrast, only 3,000 customers had been wooed by an
earlier offer to undercut BT prices by 10 percent four months
after it launched its phone service in November 1998.
''The volume of people needed to move was quite large for
Localtel to make a profit and that's why most analysts thought
(the phone service) wasn't a viable proposition,'' said Doug
Walker, a spokesman. ''Then we launched the Internet access
service.''
And BT will strike back this weekend with a flat-fee phone
service that allows unlimited weekend calls to its Internet
service for 11.75 pounds a month ($18.91).
Even as things start to change, the U.K.'s Campaign for
Unmetered Telecommunications says on its Website it wont ease up
on its battle. Such offers need to extend to the working day and
investments still need to be made in newer technologies.
And surfers across the rest of Europe want to benefit from
the same offers.
Countries with associations participating in the boycott
include Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France,
Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K. Also, groups in Germany and the
Netherlands support the strike, although they are not
participating in it.
''Everything that goes toward developing the Internet is
welcome,'' said Christophe Sapet, chairman of Infosources SA
which runs Infonie and Lokace Online. |
