The most unkindest CUTs of all (7 March 2000) The AltaVista offer, the NTL offer and others have not so much lowered the bar as dropped it onto the ground: not merely unmetered, but unmetered and subscription-free, Internet access is on the agenda and rather a lot of plans and projections must be going up in smoke. For example, we know that BT ADSL will be marketed as a 'premium product' - but how can that, even for a technically superior service, justify up to a 60-fold price difference? (from the NTL and AltaVista offer details plus ADSL rumoured rates). And it is no surprise that John Pluthero is angry about ADSL delays; the legs of the rather wobbly chair on which Freeserve sits are, one by one, being broken ... So where do we go from here? Certainly our aim has been to get the issues noticed; we cannot actually implement things, although we have not been short of constructive suggestions. Nobody could disagree that we have been phenomenally successful in getting the issues noticed: with another appearance on Newsnight, the Chancellor of the Exchequer pitching in, and the Prime Minister too, we can scarcely do better although it is rumoured that the Queen 'surfs the Net'. And, now, those who can do are doing. Probably our most surprising achievement of all is that we have influenced the English language. The Oxford English Dictionary is working with us to define the usage of unmetered, a word few used eighteen months ago and everyone uses now. One person commented to us that he never thought the day would come when 'unmetered' was heard on a Classic FM news broadcast ... We will keep a slightly lower profile and watch everyone else try to claim credit for what we have done; there is certainly no need to chronicle every offer. That said, nothing mentioned over the past few days is actually up and running, and there is still nobody mentioning unmetered voice calls.