This story is reported by .Net Magazine.

"If there's one thing the Americans do right it's free phone calls so they get to enjoy unlimited Internet access just by paying the subscription and jack diddly else. The good news is that a similar proposal to bring Britain into line is progressing rapidly. Longer access for all means huge technological advances, better on-line services and much more. The motion is being led by CUT, the Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications who are meeting next week to discuss the issue with e-minister, Patricia Hewitt. The bid has the backing of ISPs and BT are already under pressure to reduce the cost of local calls. Another option is introducing permanent Net connection deals to residential users as well as businesses. It seems like the whole of Europe are wrangling with telecom companies over on-line costs. Austria and France are paying the most, although this isn't slowing the increase in Internet users. And Scandinavia are racing ahead with the most users per capita in the world."

Read more about all this at: http://www.the-times.co.uk/freethenet/

Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
http://www.unmetered.org.uk/

Meanwhile AOL have just announced changes in their pricing structure for customers. One of their offers is a standard 1p/minute telephone call charge irrespective of the time of day or day of the week. Hopefully, this will set off a price war on call costs for using the Internet!