FRIACO - Unmetered Victory for UK consumers

London, 29 May 2000

For immediate release


Oftel's Direction late Friday 26 May to BT to offer wholesale Flat Rate 
Internet Access Call Origination (FRIACO) to competing UK network operators 
is a landmark victory in the fight for unmetered telecommunications.  It 
ensures that unlimited unmetered Internet access will be available at an 
affordable price to all who wish it in the UK.  FRIACO will be available from 
1 June 2000 onwards from BT SurfTime enabled BT exchanges.  By November 2000, 
 all of BT's exchanges are to be SurfTime enabled.  Since it is a wholesale 
product, consumers will only be able to enjoy the benefits of FRIACO through 
their ISP's UK network operator. 

Oftel's Direction came after MCI/Worldcom requested Oftel to resolve a 
dispute between it and BT concerning the proposed wholesale tariff.  FRIACO 
was actually formulated by AOL late last year after CUT conveyed Oftel's 
observation that they would rule on a proposed unmetered tariff if a dispute 
was brought to them.  CUT heartily thanks AOL, MCI/Worldcom and Oftel for 
their respective roles in bringing to fruition what CUT has struggled for so 
long to achieve with respect to Internet access.

CUT estimates that the cost to an ISP of providing unmetered Internet access 
through FRIACO will be approximately £5 per month/per subscriber based on a 
subscriber/modem ratio of 10:1.  This is substantially lower than BT 
SurfTime's monthly price of £19.99 for unlimited unmetered access.  
Consequently, CUT expects that most UK ISPs will be offering unmetered 
Internet access using FRIACO rather than through BT SurfTime in its present 
form.  FRIACO also has the important advantage of being accessible from any 
BT phone line in the UK as compared to SurfTime which is tied to a single 
phone number.

FRIACO comes at a time when there is an unmetered Internet access war raging 
in the UK.  This unmetered Internet access war was viewed as unsustainable in 
the long term because underlying the unmetered charges of the ISPs was a 
metered cost payable by the ISPs to BT.  FRIACO now provides a sound basis 
for unmetered ISPs and will ensure that unmetered Internet access is 
permanently available in the UK.
It will also ensure that the quality of unmetered access will improve 
substantially, although there may be some initial congestion problems for a 
few months as users increase their average daily usage and the installed base 
of ISP modems are temporarily inadequate to handle the increased volume. 

Meanwhile, CUT continues to campaign for the availability of unmetered 
narrowband and broadband telecommunications at reasonable cost for all in the 
United Kingdom.
BT still does not offer unmetered local voice calls and its deployment of 
ADSL is lagging which are just a few of the issues that CUT is concerned 
about.  For more information about CUT see our website at 
http://www.unmetered.org.uk and for more information on FRIACO, see our lead 
news story 'FRIACO FAQ'.  


Press inquiries should be directed to: 
Press Officer, Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
press@unmetered.org.uk 
+44 20 7681 2831