Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
 
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Red Hat Linux turns the screw (18 January 2000)

Six weeks ago we made a submission to OFTEL on its consultation document describing BT's proposals for unmetered telephone modem and ISDN access for schools and 'designated institutions'.

In summary, we said that the proposed rates were too expensive: BT should concentrate on affordable universal unmetered tariffs rather than devising yet more tariff structures for yet more subdivisions of BT subscribers.

Since then the screw has been tightened by two further announcements:

  • Telewest announcing an unmetered Internet access rate for its residential customers of £10 per month all in for Internet access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;

  • Red Hat Linux announcing that it will offer its operating system and bundled packages to UK schools free with technical support at cost.
Splitting up how a PC is purchased and maintained by a school into five parts, we believe that three of those parts are now manageable:
  • Hardware, by the Government's proposed recycling schemes;

  • Operating systems and software;

  • Support.
Two are not:
  • Training of school staff, which we understand is currently folded into LEA budgets. We are not aware of any attempts to tackle the training of classroom teachers - never mind technicians;

  • Internet connectivity.
The BT proposed rate for ten hours a day unmetered access for schools is five times the Telewest residential rate for unlimited unmetered access!

We believe that, for BT to retain any credibility, all its proposed unmetered tariffs, including Surftime which teachers and pupils will benefit from at home, must be replaced by a single unlimited unmetered rate at or close to that offered by Telewest.

Had we known at the time of the astonishingly small budgets some primary schools have for IT (we've been quoted figures down to £600 per year) we would have made our points about coss even more strongly in responding to the consultation paper. That £600 would be swallowed up completely by connectivity at the proposed BT rates.

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