The Scream! and ISPreview Put a Few Questions to WOL

1. Why has WOL not tried to follow this route and ask customers to return to BT and simply route the calls through a box or an access number. Combine this with a minimum call value and WOL would then have to rely less on BT, would then be dealing solely with an independant telecoms backbone provider. Would not have to deal with BT, not have to wait for friaco and would be able to supply a truly free service for those that want 24/7 access and a controllable service for those that want the offpeak service?

I don't understand the commercial logic of this - there will still be a cost to World Online of using a third party telecoms provider so how can the service be free??

2., 3. What is the fastest most cost effective way to leave wol, this is what I have been told to do by wol CS since I use about 150 hrs a month online? What is the latest date I can leave this incase 'anything happens in the next 3 weeks'? I do not wish to incur costs of the recent wol price hike.

Simply follow the Cease Order process; you can leave whenever you want before or after the end of the notice period. If you decide to change to Line Rental only service, you can always add back a Freedom Plan if the pricing is attractive to you at a later date.

4. Why have you, wol, not tried a judicial review of the FRIACO fioasco and/or using the European court to move the BT/OFTEL cartel?

World Online has been at the negotiating table with BT Oftel and the OLOs since the last quarter of 1999. We have and will continue to exert every pressure open to us but as you will probably realise, you must have exhausted the processes with your national regulator before you can take any complaints to Europe.

5. You seem to have broken the very basic rule that you signed people up on with Localtel. You have promised me that off-peak Unmetered Free Calls would always stay? If "freedom lite" was viable under localtel who said "As long as you stay with us this will be free" Why is it not now ?

The economics of the model have now changed; we have customers on both services and have endeavoured to do the best by the greatest number of customers possible.

6. Has anyone (including Doc and co) considered the implications for OAPs and disabled people, to whom the internet has given a new lease of life. What about these people Doc? Dont you and WOL in general have any guilt pangs?

We believe that we are offering all groups of customers good value, £2.99 a month for 50 hours of off-peak access and £14.99 a month for 100 hours of access at any time day or night.

7. If WOL have so much money why can't they ride out this until FRIACO?

There are other priorities for funds such as delivering the benefits of DSL and capital investment in our network which will benefit all of our present and future customers.

8. Will you be offering ISDN at a much cheaper rate than BT? That will also be competitive to NTL's up and coming 128k isdn. I have had a BT test and i can have ISDN.

Do you mean DSL? ISDN is a product we would like to offer but it is not available to us yet.

9. I would like to know how you can give us statistics of our useage (making the point to us that most are light users) when you do not bill most of us! Where do you get your figures from if you do not have our call data? If you do have our call data, why can't we be billed?

All the call detail is sent to us monthly by BT. That information is the basis of all our billing and analysis.

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