BT Internet service under threat

The Internet Service Providers Asscoiation (ISPA) may try to block BT's plans to offer a pay-as-you-go, ISP-less Internet access service. ISPs claim it could put them out of business in the long term. Last week, BT announced a trial project - dubbed Click - which will provide Internet access and services such as Web-based email. Monthly bills will not be sent to consumers, but charges will be made on top of regular call costs on a per minute basis.

David Kennedy, chief executive of ISPA, said: "We're considering our position, but we are concerned BT's actions will result in less competition in the industry. New Internet users might see it as a way to get online and not realise what they're missing."

Although BT's trial - if adopted nationwide - would give millions of consumers an easy route onto the Internet, some observers fear that in the long-term some ISPs will be forced out of business. An Oftel spokesman said the telecoms watchdog had not yet received a letter of complaint from ISPA, but added: "We do expect to be talking to them and a lot of other people about this."

However, David Brown, chairman of telecoms consultancy, Schema, said: "It's hard to see how ISPA has a case. Unless they can prove BT is marketing this service at a loss with a view to putting ISPs out of business, they are going to have a hard time of it." ISPA's Kennedy added that the association is not hell bent on stopping BT's trial. "We'd like to see ISPs being able to offer a similar kind of service," he said. Others have acknowledged that it is not in BT's interest to put ISPs out of business. The more the industry grows, the more traffic is sent over the telco's network.