British Telecom

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 00:24:57 +0100
To: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu
From: Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk (Brian Randell)
S
Dave:


There have been items in the UK press today, I assume inspired by a press
release which you already have access to, about Microsoft's plans for
networked PC-based information services. What was particularly interesting
was that it was stated that British Teleccom is involved, particularly in
the light of the following comments I just received from a colleague.


>Which reminds me. BT announced their new "Internet Access Service" with the
>usual glossy brochure and large stand at the INET/JENC in Prague in June,
>with a launch date of 1st Sept (which I reported to some of you). I havn't
>been able to get any more information. The phone number isn't answered, nor
>is email. This morning I persisted and rang their press office. he referred
>me to 152. After a rather amusing 5 minutes ("what was that service again",
>"oh computers", enlightenment: "oh, I see, the *computers* talk to each
>other" (how's that for the telephone mind-set?)) I finally got through to
>an 0800 number ("how did you find out about this number?"). It appears that
>the announcement is delayed yet again to the end of the year, or perhaps
>January. She took my name and promised to post something. I did make an
>attempt to suggest email, but it was met with a snide comment about
>internet email not having acknowledgements and thus not being reliable.
>
>Sigh. :-(   I still suspect that the big problem is pricing relative to
>their X.25 and Frame Relay services - i.e. either they will make the price
>similar to their other services and it will be uncompetitive on the
>Internet market, or the price will be competitive on the Internet merket
>and will blow their other services away.


Cheers


Brian


Dept. of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell@newcastle.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 91 222 7923
FAX = +44 91 222 8232