It seems as though it were only yesterday that FREE ISPs (Internet Service Providers) helped to change the face of the UK Internet, forever. Yet in reality the timing is much closer to two+ years from when 'ConnectFree Internet' (The true first) came into existence. Since then nearing 500 free ISPs have arrived and when combined with commercial ISPs that number reaches as high, if not higher, than 1000.

Some said that FREE ISPs were doomed and only likely to exist for a short period; others said quite the opposite. Now we approach a time where during the next few months the Internet will quite suddenly become almost totally free. The price? Between £10 and £35 for 24/7 unrestricted Internet access through your telephone or digital and cable line. Your monthly subscription and calls would all be included in one single payment, yet this has the potential to tear apart all the FREE ISPs in one fatal blow.

Legacy Lost

There's no doubt about it, FREE ISPs helped change the way we work and play on-line. They made the Internet more accessible, fun and even trendy to the point that even the most unintelligent of people could use it with ease. In many ways they provided the crucial stepping-stones into a world of on the spot information that strokes us all. However their fatal floor was not something previously thought a problem, until recently when freecall access sprung up on an unsuspecting public.

ISPs like CallNet0800 and X-Stream introduced 24/7 0800 (freecall) systems, while other 'more commercial' ISPs launched weekend 0800 packages. Over time evening calls soon became free along with the weekend ones. Within a few months (already for some) the Internet will suddenly change to being almost totally free. Telewest have already started their 24/7 free call system that costs registrants a meagre £10 a month. If even the lightest of users were to use the Internet on a basic FREE ISP under 0845 numbers it would likely cost them just more than twice that much.

Normal BT users will also be able to have the option of BT Surftime Unlimited, costing a more expensive £34.99 inc. VAT that gives exactly the same as Telewests offer but for BT Users. What you have to remember is that all these packages are aimed at 'medium to heavy' users thus starts the big problem.

So why would FREE ISPs have a problem?

The difficulty comes when FREE ISPs suddenly find that commercial ones are undercutting them. FREE ISPs work by taking a proportion of the profit from phone calls and through business sponsorship, so what do you think happens when commercial ISPs make FREE Calls possible and include the monthly subscription in the charge? Exactly.

We aren't saying that ALL FREE ISPs will die, no, simply a majority that will slowly perish or merge into others over the period of two or three years. Ironically the same time it took them to come into existence. Those that have strong business sponsorship or that are run exclusively as an extension ONLY to a business will likely survive.

It's the FREE ISPs that just offer a basic set of services (0845 etc.) whom are most likely to succumb to the freecall systems. Once users start to move away and onto more cost saving services that allow them greater flexibility, the basic FREE ISPs will soon become strained and begin to fold. Some 350 out of the 450 FREE ISPs fit into this category and so as you can imagine, a slow yet mass exodus of ISP slaughter could ensue.

Why should we care?

At first it may seem pointless and in the end it may well be, however numbers represent competition and competition represents the consumer's quality. By killing off the dense population of FREE ISPs you also kill of a large proportion of the competition, which means the users technically have less on their side. Competition is what drives the economy, it push prices up and down, makes products more accessible and advanced and helps the world go round. Without it the consumer have less on their side.

Yet it's unlikely we will be affected too much due to the new freecall standards being all we asked for anyway. Competition will still exist; just nowhere near as strong as it is today. Essentially the emergence of FREE ISPs is very much a revolution that forms part of the genesis going on all the time around us on the UK Internet. Either way, time will tell the story and so all we have to do is keep writing it, the power is in our hands (unless it's Microsoft, in which case..)