David Laight <david@l8s.co.uk>  wrote:
 > > Hrrm. As a non-UKanian, I must admit to staring boggled in front
 > > of me at this. What possible motivation could they have for such
 > > an idiotic practice?! I frequently sit online for hours working
 > > on stuff at uni or the computer club. Any ISP that tried tricks like that
 > > would lose my money within a business day. Is it one of those
 > > "customers should just pr0n-surf for two hours and then disconnect
 > >  so they won't drain our limited, over-utilised pool of IP-addresses"
 > > policies? I am baffled. :)
 > 
 > The thing to remember is that (traditionally) local phone calls in
 > the uk are not 'free'.  So you would pay about 1p (or $0.01) per
 > minute for a connection.  If you are willing to pay that you can
 > stay online for as lomg as you want....

Not only that, but think about the economics.

We have a few dialup customers in a part of the business that refuses
to just 'die'.  When we did 'unlimited usage', people would want to
stay online 24x7 for their $10/month.

Ask me if I want to be in the business of paying $30/month for a PRI
channel that's getting me $10/month in revenue.

Unlike other ISP's who advertise "unlimited usage dialup" but then 
mysteriously disconnect you after a few hours of online time.

Anyone who thinks an ISP is "playing tricks" is a moron. I don't 
even want you as a customer if you're paying me $60/month for 
unlimited access.  Besides the PRI channels, and upstream bandwidth,
I also have to pay electricity, support staff, accounting staff,
and someone to pester you every day for 3 weeks after your credit
card has expired and you don't remember to give me the new number,
but then threaten to sue me when I deactivate your account when 
you don't return messages...

Running an ISP sucks. I'm embarassed to admit that I run one 
that refuses to just die and go away.