DIARY: Ruminations, Occasional thoughts & happenings - as they arise
Email as sent to friends etc... 2nd
November 1999
Subject:
FREE 24 HOUR
INTERNET ACCESS
dEAR pEOPLE!
(There y'are - I'm so excited I can't get my keys right!)
Just in case you have not seen it I attach a small paragraph from yesterday's
"Times" Interface magazine, giving details of yet another TOTALLY FREE
Internet Connection: this time offering free telephone connection 24-hours
a day (UK only)! View it yourself at http://www.callnet0800.co.uk
There is a waiting list at present, but one simply logs on and leaves name and
telephone number/s for future contact by the Company.
This is not a takeon! It is, to my mind, part of a strategy by a conglomerate of
companies to force BT to introduce unmetered local calls (as exist in Oz etc.)
Have a nice day!
UNMETERED
LOCAL TELEPHONE CALLS 23 October, 1999
Sometimes I write letters to the Press. I get all worked up.
Do you? Write letters to the Press I mean! Here's one I wrote today - to
the Times (I get it on Mondays, for the 'Internet Interface Magazine', despite
the fact that I tend to vomit at the paper's collective Conservative ethos -
Aaaargh! I think the Editor returns the feelings! He never publishes my
letters. I'm not a Duke or the Rt. Hon. Smythy-Chin-Wobbly Thing, y'see!)
Sir,
I'm 66 years old - and I'm broke! But I am not brain dead, and by
listening and searching I have managed to find a phone company (Localtel) which,
in addition to charging 10% less than BT, is able to provide free TELEPHONE connection
to the Internet (6pm - 8am weekdays & all weekend) - as well as free HOST
ACCESS, via an Internet Service Provider with the ridiculous name of
Screaming.net! (Thank you Screaming Dot Net! Thank you Localtel!)
It is quite nonsensical that BT - with incredible profit
levels - cannot afford to let the populace have unmetered local calls - as
in USA, Canada & Australia - and also reduce outrageous customer charges
for ISDN and for proposed ADSL connections that will enable forty times faster
transmission but use existing copper telephone lines - already paid for, over
and over again and requiring only nominal servicing, expansion and
replacement costs.
BT must be forced by Parliament to alter its
practice of excessive charges - to enable the development and
enhancement of the network of Britain's business, economic, educational and
social communication.
I no longer work in industry or education, but I
am still concerned about charges that directly affect each one of us in a
community sense.
Families separated by the need to go where
work can be found must be able to communicate easily and cheaply, for the
health and equilibrium of family and workforce; and, also in this familial
context, we who have terminated our working lives and are largely redundant
in economic and financial terms - still have, on occasion, some contribution to
make to society: e.g. those who stumble across my slight and evolving memorial
website may not find all aspects of it to their taste, but the viewpoints
expressed are at least mildly educational and stimulating (and here and there, I
think, a bit 
humorous)
- and the effort of creating it sure as hell beats having my teletubbie tummy
tickled into a delusion of ecstasy by the fickle finger of ET - while
BT, with a marvelous sleight-of-hand illusion of generosity and great
prestidigital dexterity, uses some other fingers to deftly pick my pocket of
small change and invites British society to revolve on another.
Let our Government and its agencies make sound, careful
decisions, rather than swallow the slick publicity of a mammoth company that is
solely motivated by the desire to retain excess profit margins at the
expense of the economic and social well-being of their customers: i.e.
all of the people of Britain and Northern Ireland.
Yours,
Michael O'Shea,
55 Strangford Road, Ardglass, Co. Down, BT30 7SP Tel: 01396 841158