BT to trial payg BB

[Ramrod]

Net users in the UK could be given the choice of paying for broadband access by the minute if a mini-trial later this summer proves successful.

Instead of users paying a flat fee for their broadband access, BT is giving punters the chance to pay 5p a minute for the time they spend online. BT Wholesale is recruiting 50 people from within the company to take part in an eight-week trial due to begin within the next month or so.

As part of the market test, the UK's dominant fixed line telco wants to establish whether it's commercially viable to offer a broadband service paid for by the minute. At the moment, many ISPs offer flat-fee broadband access. Others offer a flat-fee/PAYG hybrid, which enables punters to acquire additional time online if they need it.

But according to internal documents seen by The Register: "BT is very aware that not all people want to pay a monthly fee for Broadband access and many only want to pay for the time they are using the service. As part of BT Group's commitment to Broadband Britain, BT Wholesale are looking to trial a Pay as You Go Broadband offering which will enable customers to have up to 10 times faster internet service and only pay for the time they are online.

"This is a limited two month market test by BT Wholesale Markets to establish usage patterns and the triallists' existing connections will be restored at the end of the test. The only cost to triallists will be a 5 pence per minute usage charge for the time triallists are connected to the Internet."

A spokesman for BT Wholesale confirmed that the trial was going ahead but that it was still "very early days". BT doesn't intend to launch a PAYG broadband service at this time, he said.

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(Please delete thread if this has already been reported elsewhere)

[SMHarman]

Hmm, how would you do that? You would almost need to switch your modem on and off, otherwise general traffic could mean you are charged 5p for every minute of the day.

Would this also requre a USB CM with dial up. I assume a router could not be involved in such a setup.

Interesting concept though.

[Ramrod]

I've seen £3/hour seen mentioned elsewhere

[SMHarman]

5p/min = £3/hr

So someone online for just one hour a day would pay about £90 a month

No thanks.

[SMHarman]

Surely with PAYG on BB it would be better to charge for bandwidth?

£3/Mb or something? Though my GPRS bill is about that so it should be a lot cheaper than that.

[paulyoung666]

well i hope this is a dead duck before ntl take a look

A quick calculation reveals that at 5p a minute, you'd only need to spend 8.3 hours online a month before you'd be better off getting a monthly fee service (assuming 24.99 a month).

And, of course PAYG rather negates the concept of "always on"...!

[Chris W]

Metronet here already offer PAYG bandwidth and it is charged by the bandwidth. Works out great for the light user.

MB

[Charlie_Bubble]

Talk about going backwards. All the years we whined on about having to payg for dial-up access, then we moved on to free dial-up and then broadband, but according to this study we haven't moved on at all really! Strikes me as a truly stupid idea.

[ntl customer]

I'm sure this is an idea that BT would like to take on so they could screw much more money out of the customer for internet access.

We already are behind many other countries when it comes to broadband and this won't help. I doubt very much that a really light user who reads a few text emails and does a bit of browsing would need to have a broadband connection.

This is a giant step backwards IMO ... let's hope it doesn't catch on otherwise we could all be paying per Gb/ per minute!