Unmetered internet access - the year in review

It has not been a good year for unmetered internet access. The start of the new millennium has seen an almost constant tide of service providers jumping on the unmetered access bandwagon and then falling off again because they could not make their offerings commercially viable.

Check out vnunet.com's full round up of the year's unmetered saga here.

The year 2000 kicked off with LineOne pulling its unmetered service saying that the model was no longer financially viable, soon after it was cleared by ISPA of acting unreasonably - much to the chagrin of its angry customers.

LineOne's demise started a domino effect throughout the whole industry with CallNet0800 and Ezesurf both pulling the plug on their services after running out of cash and leaving users in the lurch. Breathe also cut off its unmetered offering significantly later than the other doomed ISPs. However, this was after it was forced to ditch 500 users - so called heavy breathers - earlier in the year, citing excessive usage as the reason.

During 2000 most unmetered providers came under fire at some point for shoddy service. The popular claim from ISPs is that 'heavy users' had been hogging bandwidth and restricting the service for everyone else.

Perhaps the biggest blow to the UK's unmetered ISP industry was delivered by Altavista in August with its incredible disappearing unmetered service. The company claimed it had 100,000 users signed up to the service but was eventually forced to admit that the offering didn't even exist.

There may be some light at the end of the tunnel, however, as Oftel eventually took heed of the criticism heaped upon it and took a tough stance, forcing BT to end its practice of charging other operators per second for connections. As of February next year BT will have to provide a new wholesale flat rate internet access model to support unmetered providers.

All this should mean good news for consumers. David Edmonds director general of Oftel said the "proposals will give a major boost to the availability of unmetered internet access for consumers. These measures should allow millions of people to have unlimited access to the internet without worrying running up high call charges".