ISPreview takes a final look at the unmetered/freecall situation

The Internet has provided us with an easy access to areas we otherwise wouldn't take the time to look at or simply expands those we do. However in the ever-evolving world of unmetered access this has caused more than a few problems.

The Average

Before going into any kind of detail it's probably wise you read our 'Cost Of Unmetered' and 'Real Unmetered' articles, they will help shed some light on the issues we are about to raise. Only a year ago the average time a person would spend online was listed as 25minutes, since then that has shot to a dramatic 45minutes.

Such statistics are based on a national UK wide survey and take into account all Dial-Up ISPs, the majority being standard 0845 local call rate ones with only 10% being freecall (unmetered). In fact the use of such statistics is the very reason early-unmetered ISPs failed to survive longer than just a few months.

According to our own survey of around 600 people, the majority spend 2 - 3Hours online per day (around 31%), with the next biggest group spending 4 - 7Hours (25%) online. This is from a general survey, although is comprised of a majority that make use of freecall ISPs. The last group with any kind of lead surfs for 8 to 11Hours per day (20%) and the rest are a mixture of less or more than those hours we've just mentioned.

Do The Math

Before looking at one of the problems that occur with online time and that your ISPs don't like to discuss, lets remind ourselves of the costs involved. Firstly lets look at the old FRIACO model, being the cheapest option we can find. There are several key areas that cause ISPs a problem:

1. Port Costs (£430PA for one 64Kbps port [Est. £35 per month]).
2. Network costs (varies depending on ISP - includes backbone and services [webspace etc.]).
3. Metered call costs.

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