[ian@huth]

What you have to remember is that there are several reasons for price increases.

A company may decide to offer a service at no cost to the customer, something that NTL did with its dial-up internet access. Naturally if you are offering something for free there comes a time when you have to start charging for it, after all it costs the company something to provide it and in the long term the company has to make a profit. Do you move from a free service to a paid for service at the going rate that others charge? Not really, you work towards it over a period of time. That means annual price rises above the rate of inflation.

Ackees is looking at the dial-up price increase as being a rip off, but in reality NTLs dial-up customers have been getting a bargain for years and are now still enjoying the service at below average price.