European Telecommunications Boycott: Fourth Objective

London, 2 June 1999

For immediate release

Internet users in fifteen European countries are joining forces to
campaign for fairer telecommunications charges. The following countries
intend to take part in a European Telecommunications Boycott [1] on
Sunday 6 June: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France,
Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Each Wednesday from 12 May to 2 June we in the Campaign for Unmetered
Telecommunications (CUT), the UK participating campaign, will further
explain one of the objectives of the Boycott.

The fourth objective is "For Internet users, quicker introduction of
modern access methods such as xDSL, cable modems and satellite access,
which do not use the telephone modem and are a great improvement on it
for users."

Such 'modern access methods' have been promised for a considerable time
- we have records of unfulfilled statements by various companies going
back to 1996 - but are only now becoming available with the beginnings
of the NTL cable modem rollout [2]. The other major cable operators,
Cable & Wireless Communications and Telewest, are well behind NTL, and
BT's rollout of ADSL is much rumoured but not yet announced.

The NTL trial has set a benchmark, namely UKP40pcm for unmetered access,
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with maximum download speed about ten
times that of a telephone modem. So it would seem that, for broadband
access, CUT's aims are finally on the way to being met. Yet there is
much to campaign for. For example:

i. Although NTL's charging structure is, for our purposes, ideal there
is no obligation for other operators to follow it.

ii. UKP40 per month is a considerable amount of money for many, and
possibly most, people. We remember the first photographer who was
involved with CUT stating that that amount over a year added up to the
cost of a family holiday.

iii. As well as incomplete coverage in cabled areas, remote parts of the
United Kingdom will not benefit from 'modern access methods' in the
short term.

iv. An issue which will come to the fore as further rollouts take place
is contractual restrictions on what subscribers can do with the service.
BT's ISN (ADSL) trial [3] employs firewalls which make some Internet
activities difficult to access, and the general feeling is that
running servers from home will be, at the very least, discouraged. We
campaign for unrestricted access.

v. Some methods, such as Easysat [4], use a telephone return path. How
will that be charged for?

Notes for Editors

1. Our original press release, announcing the European
Telecommunications Boycott, is at:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/press/pr210499.txt

2. See

http://www.ntl.co.uk/cablemodems/

for a detailed NTL rollout plan.

3. See

http://www.isntrial.bt.com/

4. See

http://www.easysat.co.uk/

Contact Details

The united European campaigns' Web site:

http://www.telecom.eu.org/

UK contact:

Erol Ziya
Press Officer, Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
press@unmetered.org.uk

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/

+44 171 681 2831