BTClick+ goes live

NEWS BT has launched its much talked about pay-as-you-surf Internet access service, BTClick+. Previously known as BTClick, the final version of the service bundles Net access with a free email service called talk21, the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, and limited content from LineOne - the online news and entertainment service from BT, News International and United News & Media. John Swingewood, director of BT's Internet and Multimedia Services division, said: "Our aim is to make it as easy as possible for people to get on the Net." The service - which costs 1p per minute on top of local voice call costs without the need to pay a monthly ISP fee - will initially connect users to the Internet via PCs. However, as of next year, BTClick+ will be available over digital TVs which use services from British Interactive Broadcasting (BiB), and eventually from Internet-enabled payphones. Swingewood forecast that by 2000, the service will have four million users. BT's key partners in providing the service are the Abbey National bank, which will be BTClick+'s exclusive financial services sponsor, Compaq, which will pre-install the service on its Presario range of PCs, LineOne, which will provide an online publication branded as 'the daily click', and BiB. BT said Netscape browser and Macintosh-based versions of BTClick+ will be available shortly. Robin Duke-Woolley, principal consultant at Schema, said: "BTClick+ is a market enabler and should be encouraged, but I'd have raved about it more if Dixons hadn't launched last week." The UK's largest high street electronics retailer recently started offering a free ISP service, called Freeserve, in conjunction with Energis subsidiary Planet Online. Duke-Woolley continued: "Residential Internet service providers may well complain, but free services are sustainable for certain providers. For example Dixons might weigh up what it's doing against, say, direct mail campaigns." mail campaigns."