Using the Net to run your life is a breeze in the US, where the time surfers
spend online is not metered. Slowly, other countries are cottoning on to the
fact that cyberlife will be stillborn unless unmetered access reaches them, too.
And Britain, it seems, is fast becoming the world’s test bed for a whole bunch
of “free” Internet service ideas. But just who will pay for them in the long
term?
It all started in 1998, when Freeserve (www.freeserve.net) was launched as
Britain’s first free Internet service provider. However, users must still pay
their phone company—usually British Telecom—for…
