The X-Stream Network Inc, the first internet service provider to go subscription-free in the UK, has now joined the growing number of ISPs to also offer toll-free dialup 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The service will be offered on a trial basis starting this week, and the company makes much of the fact that there is no need for the subscriber to sign up to any other service in order to benefit. Most ISPs offering free online time have some kind of paid-for voice telephony component to the deal.
X-Stream funds itself primarily with revenue from advertising pumped to the proprietary dialer software subscribers must use, as well as from users buying things from its web sites. CEO Paul Myers told ComputerWire that X-Stream has never relied on making money from the cost of the call under the Number Translation Service (NTS) formula, a model pioneered by Freeserve Plc. So going toll-free will not mean the company is losing a major revenue stream.
Under the new offering, users see one advert per minute, with X-Stream charging the advertiser more than the cost of providing the toll-free minute, which is usually around a penny ($0.016), depending on time of day.
Myers was unusually candid about the likelihood of demand outstripping supply – hence the trial period. Competitors such as GreatXScape, which offers free dialup at off-peak times to users of its telephony service, recently came in for sharp criticism for imposing 20 hours per month limits on all new users and those it saw as abusing the system by spending long periods online. GreatXScape said it found it difficult to supply customers with connectivity when some users were hogging all the modems.
