barkingmoose: The European Commission issued a report backing flat-rate Internet access across the EU with the goal of increasing Internet use in member nations. From the report: “One deterrent to greater use of the Internet is the customer’s awareness that, in the absence of flat rate or unmetered usage charges, the bill is mounting with every minute spent on line.” That reminds me of AOL circa 1994, using that scheduled email synching tool to pull down your messages so you could log back off and stop the charges from going through the roof—but they went through the roof anyhow.

Meanwhile, 4.1 million Americans who graduated from dial-up to cable modems using now-bankrupt Excite@Home are holding their collective breath, waiting to see whether their service ceases this Friday. The timing of this latest development hits home for me—after almost two years as an unwilling dial-up customer, the service Comcast has been promising would be available in my area for months seemed close to becoming a reality. A co-worker who lives one town over received his self-installation kit today, and I was promised mine would be delivered by the end of next month.

But now I’m starting to think the only way I’ll get hooked back up with broadband access is if I move—maybe to Europe!


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The European Commission issued a report backing flat-rate Internet access across the EU with the goal of increasing Internet use in member nations. From the report: “One deterrent to greater use of the Internet is the customer’s awareness that, in the absence of flat rate or unmetered usage charges, the bill is mounting with every minute spent on line.” That reminds me of AOL circa 1994, using that scheduled email synching tool to pull down your messages so you could log back off and stop the charges from going through the roof—but they went through the roof anyhow.

Meanwhile, 4.1 million Americans who graduated from dial-up to cable modems using now-bankrupt Excite@Home are holding their collective breath, waiting to see whether their service ceases this Friday. The timing of this latest development hits home for me—after almost two years as an unwilling dial-up customer, the service Comcast has been promising would be available in my area for months seemed close to becoming a reality. A co-worker who lives one town over received his self-installation kit today, and I was promised mine would be delivered by the end of next month.

But now I’m starting to think the only way I’ll get hooked back up with broadband access is if I move—maybe to Europe!

Wednesday 28-November-01

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