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By editorial@silicon.com, 11 September 2002 17:00

COMMENT A man walks into a Chinese restaurant and orders the 'All you can eat' buffet lunch at £4.99 and a glass of tap water. He picks up a plate and piles it high with sweet and sour pork, beef in black bean sauce, a mountain of egg fried rice and a couple of spring rolls. He returns to his seat and begins his feast. One hour - and six full plates - later, he shows no sign of slowing and no sense of having out-stayed his welcome despite the concerned glances from the waiters. Three plates further on and the restaurant owner finally steps in and asks - politely - for the man to leave. "But," cries the man, in homage to Homer Simpson, "it says 'all you can eat' and I can eat more..." Where do your sympathies lie - with the diner who believes 'all you can eat' means exactly that or the restaurateur who's seen his lunchtime promo backfire and his week's profits go (probably quite literally) down the toilet? While you ponder that moral and semantic dilemma, let's change the characters of the story. For the restaurant owner read Freeserve, for the diner read internet user and for the lunchtime promo read 'unlimited' dial-up internet access. Today Freeserve found itself censured by the Advertising Standards Authority for claiming its AnyTime service allowed you to surf "for as long as you like". Not strictly true as the complainant pointed out. After two hours surfing - or just 10 minutes of inactivity - the user is thrown off. Sure he or she can come back, but that's not the same thing as "as long as you like". By pure coincidence, we're certain, the complaint came from BT. But before everyone's favourite telco takes the moral high ground, let's remember it has committed similar crimes in the past. Indeed, its own Anytime service restricts users to just 12 hours access a day. The analogy with the restaurant is not quite perfect because the marginal costs of supporting the heavy-duty user are relatively low. However, given the nature of internet access, the greater the number of concurrent users the slower the experience for everyone - unless the operator invests in extra capacity. And that, of course, costs. Like the Chinese restaurant, both Freeserve and BT are guilty of taking liberties with the English language in the name of a winning marketing message. The small print may make the limitations of unlimited access plain but a more visible disclaimer is clearly needed. But should we really ask the providers to change the brand? Probably not.