Free spirit
How could anybody complain about a service that isn't costing them a penny? When Freeserve was launched, internet access was for a minority, yet all I remember reading at the time about the ISP (internet service provider) was the poor service that it provided.

I didn't care. It was the first time I could afford to go on the web, even if I might have to dial up more than once due to the line being engaged.

Would the e-revolution have happened in the time scale that it did without Freeserve?
Charles Henderson
charlie@orpheo.co.uk

Open access
Reading the article Heavy surfers pay the price (August 3) made me ponder the determination of the communications industry to make a success of the huge opportunity that is before them.

Customers need to be able to take their time in making decisions that involve parting with money. When they are online, they are less likely to do this if they have a per minute charge in the back of their minds.

I spend much of the year in Japan and struggle with the internet when I return to the UK. In Japan I have a cable internet connection at a set monthly fee (part of a cable TV package). The internet portion costs me around £35 a month for two computers to be continuously, at my discretion, connected to the net. There are no other charges.

The infrastructure requires investment and planning, but it is possible. Stop the excuses and give us the services the net and its users need.
Steve Lewis
slewis@senri.ed.jp

Reading Heavy surfers pay the price, I could only laugh (several times). Were these whingers so naive that they thought they really would get something for nothing?
Joseph Nicholas
josephn@globalnet.co.uk

You report Sean Gardner of Breathe as saying "There was no forward visibility as to what usage patterns would be." Wouldn't it have been simpler and more honest for him to just say: "We hadn't a clue what would happen?"

I can just see the adverts for Breathe now... "Breathe Easy - you haven't a clue what will happen when you try to use us, but don't worry, we don't either."
Mark Pack
London N4

It amazes me that any company complains about "excessive demand". Surely this is why they are in business in the first place?
Richard Rance,
London N16

In March, I signed up to 4unet.co.uk, paying £20 to receive a box which plugged into my BT socket, and which would enable me to make cheap phone calls via calls4u and get free internet access. The box arrived in early April but after one month of trying, I was still unable to access the check number let alone get free internet access. I rang to cancel my account and to request a refund.

It has still not been made, and when I rang last week to complain yet again I was told that this was "a common problem".

How many others are awaiting a refund?
A.L. Ronald
a.l.ronald@theronalds.clara.co.uk

Real dream
I was very interested to read Jim Giles' article Pipe Dreams, (August 3) in which he states that "high-quality full-screen moving images will need more like 30 Mbps, leaving ADSL up to 10 times too slow".

Mr Giles may be surprised to learn that I possess a magical technology that allows me to watch crystal clear video with 5.1 sound, all at a normal data rate of 5Mbps and a maximum of 9.8Mbps.

Its name? DVD.
Edward Moyse,
London, E1

Jim Giles paints a familiar picture of how wonderful things will be when we have high-bandwidth personal internet connections. As someone who already "enjoys" such a thing I have a few home truths to anyone waiting with bated breath.

Servicing broadbandwidth consumers in any quantity requires the kind of computa tional power with which you could solve the question to the answer of Life, the Universe & Everything. A media company offering video at Jim's 6Mbps (let alone his 30Mbps) even with only hundreds of thousands connected (which is "pathetic" even for a small national traditional broadcaster) would require bandwidth of hundreds of Gigabits - never mind server resources.

Organisations like CNN, ITN, BBC etc cannot even secure sufficient IT resources to reliably deliver streaming content at around 30Kbps.

Even using ancient MPEG1 compression technology, VHS quality can be delivered at around 1.4Mbps. The 30Mbps requirement quoted in the article would be approaching that necessary to deliver cinema quality using current technologies!
John Walters
Ipswich, Suffolk.

Wap a waste
The suggestion in Second Sight (August 3) that Wap (wireless application protocol) will be a big carrier of news and other stuff is a little naive.

Let's be honest, Wap is a stinking failure, and people still talk about it because of the vast amount of money spent promoting it.

If you can get online there is nothing to find (we tried looking for football results during Euro 2000 to no avail) because it is so difficult to make a site Wap-enabled.

Compare this with Japan, where its mobile technology i-mode has raised mobile internet surfing to way beyond the desktop bound surfer. This is because it works, and there is a lot of stuff to find because it is simple to prepare a website. So let's ditch Wap now and adopt a useful technology with a proven record.
Nik Kraakenes
nik@gemisis.co.uk

What a sad person Victor Keegan seems. The words "applications for Wap phones are starting to become more interesting and useful" caught my attention (Wap watch, August 3). I read the column with mounting excitement, only to find that Victor is turned on by online wine reviews and something which will tell him where his nearest curry house is.

Perhaps I'm not the only person who is not suprised that Wap services are used so infrequently.
Andy Howell
andy.howell@ecotrend.net