This may only be relevent to UK users. At the moment many companies are offerering Free Unlimited internet access. This includes phone call time dialed through their number. I say Free, it generally costs #10 per month, but that is for access and more imprtantly Free Calls. I need this, as my quarterly phone bills are #250 from home and will no doubt be a similar amount from work, as I've just connected to the internet from my shop. I have to pay that bill as well. Right... so who knows who offers the best deal for me? A couple of things here. My wife uses freeserve and has signed up for her "Free" call number. that will cut the home phone bill by #100. I use Freeserve (3 accounts, giving me 3 15mb websites, If you don't log on to each of them in a 3 month period then your web site is deleted. I also use Totalserve which is free access, and gives me web space for my shop site. I also pay for access to Globalnet, which costs #100 a year. I'll be giving this one up in 6 months, and moving my website elsewhwere. So what I need is a company to give me Free access to the internet, from either home or work(a problem with some of these companies, they want to charge business users)I expect to pay a one off fee of #10 per month or less. I need also to be able to find another provider that can give me Unlimited web space and a cgi bin on which my domain names can be transfered with an E mail accont.The problem with most that I've ooked into is that it's one computer going through one phone number which has to be a BT home phone number. HAS ANYONE ANY IDEAS?

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

Answers

I started using BTs 'free' internet weekend service last autumn. It was #12ish per month, for this you got an 0800 number to dial for the weekend. This was fine as it worked out at ~#3 a weekend, which was worth it. In March they changed this to be #10 per month for the same 0800 number but it was changed to include 6pm to midnight for weekdays. This is perfect for me as all my home time is now covered. This also supplies me with 10MB of disk space. You can take out an annual agreement which allows you up to 2GB !! It is though limited on the cgi si deof things. More details on http://www.btinternet.com/community/mypage/homepf.html#space

I also had a freeserve account, which I use as a fallback access, in case BT fail me.

This is all well and good for home out of hours access, I haven't looked at work time, apart from work. We use a company called IFB at work and they are okay. I'll find out more from my techies.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

I shall follow this thread with great interest, as we live in fear of the phone bill here! (:o)

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2000

Spoke to my guys at work and they thought my BT suggestion was as good as any. You have the 'free' access in the evening and during the day you'll pay local rates. You get a number to dial from your account which can be on your PC at either home or work, so you don't need multiple accounts.

One of the guys uses somebody called Mistral who sound as though they have a similar #10 per month package. He has ISDN link to them which he says is fast and reliable.

Of course what you really want on the connection side is ADSL, but that'll be next year, very fast but expensive.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2000