Watch that stocking (15 December 2000) You may have friends or relatives who are due to find a PC in their stocking for their first time; you may even be expecting one yourself. Doubtless most of these machines will be intended for Internet access; given that, what do we advise? Unfortunately Christmas is a non-negotiable deadline; it would be useful if it could be delayed as sustainable unmetered services, usually based on Single Tandem FRIACO, will probably start to appear en masse in the first few months of 2001. So most, if not all, PCs sold this Christmas will have metered Internet access packages pre-installed. Given that, there are several things you can do to help: Explain the difference between metered and unmetered Internet access. Tell your friends or relatives that, to start off with, metered Internet access will be OK but every minute online will cost more and, as they 'get into' the Internet, it will probably be worth switching sooner or later. Encourage them to keep track of their metered Internet usage; there are many packages which do this in the background and tally up the costs. Make them aware of alternative services; www.phonebills.org.uk gives a reasonable estimate of the savings from switching telecommunications provider. Help them to, as soon as possible, use either a POP3 email account which is independent of any Internet Service Provider or an email forwarding service; that will make changing ISP in the future easier. When the first post-Internet phone bill appears, prepare tea with 37 sugars; you may need to give no further encouragement to a move to unmetered Internet access. We hope that such advice will not be necessary next Christmas.