You may have to pay for just a click of the mouse

13.02.2002

Imagine if one company held the right to collect a fee each time a computer user clicked on a website link and jumped to another web page.

It might sound far-fetched, but a United States federal court will hear preliminary arguments this week to determine if this most elemental of internet activities is the business property of one firm, protected in the form of a patent.

BT Group believes it holds such a patent covering "hypertext links" - the highlighted text on a web page that enables users to surf from page to page with the click of a mouse. BT is going to court to try to cash in on it.... [Full Story]
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I knew BT were greedy but bloody hell!

BT is Europe's biggest broadband rip-off

Tuesday 19th February 2002

£30 per month in the UK compares to £12 in Belgium, £14 in Spain, £18 in France... the list goes on...

BT's retail and wholesale ADSL prices soar way above those in the rest of Europe, according to independent analysis from Point Topic.

The research firm found BT's monthly charge of E49 (£30) was more than twice the wholesale price offered by... [Full Story]

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BT ordered to slash internet costs

Wednesday February 20, 2002

Internet access will become cheaper for millions of home users under price cuts proposed today by telecoms regulator Oftel.

It wants BT to slash the amount it charges rival telecoms operators to connect other service providers such as Freeserve and AOL to the network by 7%.

"Operators should ultimately be able to pass some or all of this saving on to their customers,"... [Full Story]

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