BT Do It Again

28th November 2000

BT have done it again, added another load of confusing pricing plans to their catalogue

Just when you thought it was safe to buy an Internet connection at a flat rate through surftime, knowing that you had got the best deal, from December the 1st Bt announce another range of offers and pricing plans they are calling "Surf Together".

Instead of streamlining the services that they offer it is now more complicated than ever, you can have a normal phone line, or an ISDN line then you can bolt on Surtime off peak or Surftime 24hours which all need you to sign up with another ISP of your choice, then you can have one of 5 flat rate talk plans that allow you to make phone calls at a flat rate monthly fee (except if you talk for more than one hour when you start to get charged on the 61st min onwards) ....phew

Why does BT want to complicate thing all the time, when most phone companies are streamlining their services BT seem to live in the past, carrying on with confusing price plans that discourage the normal average person from taking advantage of cheaper communications.

Come on Bt what about a simple flat rate monthly charge for unlimited phone calls and Internet access then concentrate on selling us online services instead.!!!

Look for yourself at what BT has to offer

Surftime pricing.................here

Surf & Talk Pricing..................here

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PGP (Pretty good privacy)

 

This piece of software allows you to encrypt emails that you send over the internet, it is so good that the US govenment has banned its export out of the US-

Why does the US govenment not want you to get hold of it ? read all about it here. It seems to me though that if you were using emails as a way of communicating between criminals about criminal activities you wouldn't use language that could be understood anyway.

• Source 1
• Source 2
• Source 3

Microsoft Anti-Trust, not something new !

If you think that all this anti- Microsoft stuff is news then think again, take a look at this paper from 1994 concerning MS-Dos and IBM. and this from 1997 taking us back to 1989 and it it just one episode in a long line of legal wangling and political posturing over software, operating systems, Internet browsers and the like, the only thing that is at stake here is the pride and money of the American establishment. Each new successful or not, has backers and people that missed the boat when asked to finance something.

Imagine if a young freckle faced lad came to you and said would you give him money to help him start a company that was going to take on Ford Motor Company with a new flying vehicle that will travel at twice the speed of sound and have a autopilot that you just program in coordinates and press go.- you'd think he was mad and say get lost - well thats where a lot of finance and powerful people in the US wall street now find themselves as regards to Bill gate and Microsoft, a definite case of not antitrust but sourer grapes.

In conclusion please don't take anything for granted and read between the lines, the Internet is the key to your knowledge and is a wealth of contrasting views and opinions so use it wisely and see both sides and the middle.

Ed