Pre-empting its competitor British Telecommunications Plc, Cable and Wireless Communications Plc has launched its own per-minute internet access service. In a move to compete with consumer ISPs, instead of charging for a monthly subscription the service is billed by charging pennies per minute on top of local telephone access charges. CWC’S cable telephone services users will be the first target customers for the service, that comes five weeks before BT’s launch of a similar service called Click. The new service is to be trialed until November 30, at 45 pence per hour for existing CWC telephone customers. After November 30 customers will pay 1 penny per minute weekends, and 1.77 weekday evenings. The service requires the payment of a one-time registration fee of 10 pounds, for a lifetime access to the service and a permanent e-mail address. The growth of these services could knock some ISPs out of the market by stealing existing customers, especially infrequent dial-up internet users.
