Telecoms campaigner criticises ISP but blames Oftel

NEWS The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications (CUT) has criticised Internet Service Provider ClaraNet's offer of huge discounts for dial-up Net access, but has laid the final blame for the problem at Oftel's door. ClaraCall, launched this week by ClaraNet, claims it can offer discounts of up to 40 per cent on BT standard local call charges, and so offer its customers far cheaper dial-up access to the Internet. But CUT founder, Alastair Scott, branded the claims of 'up to 40 per cent off', as "cheeky". He said that comparing ClaraNet's discounted rate to BT's standard rate is not necessarily fair, given that many users could get discounts almost as great by connecting through alternative carriers, or even through BT's own discount services. "For people who have cable it is only marginally attractive at best. I did some calculations for myself and found that my saving, based on pretty heavy usage, would only be about three per cent," he added. However, Scott went on to say that ClaraNet and other providers would be able to offer better discounts if Oftel stepped in to change the way interconnection fees are charged between telcos. ClaraNet's offer is weakened through no fault of their own, he said. "They are severely constrained in what they can do by interconnect charges between telephone operators, which in this country, means being metered [charged by the minute]. This metering has to be passed through to consumers which makes it very difficult to offer, at the moment, any unmetered option which involves national or 'local-type' calls. "Until the entire UK interconnect regime is rethought, from first principles, this situation will persist. It is one of CUT's aims to publicise the weaknesses of the current regime." For more information on CUT, see http://www.unmetered.org.uk/