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Inter@ctive Week, September 11, 1995, p. 20

Interaction

1-800-CONNECT: How About A Toll-Free Internet?

Richard Reisman

How often do you call across the country from your home to some company's 800 number? Probably pretty often. How often do you call across the country from your home to some company's regular phone number? Probably rarely, if ever.

Think about the Internet, our wondrous new Information Superhighway. How are you going to get the average consumer to use the Internet? With online magazines like Hot Wired or Pathfinder? With online shopping like PC Flowers or Marketplace MCI? With multiplayer games like Air Warrior and MOOs and MUDs? At $20 per month? At $10 per month? In what century?

With the cable-TV subscription approach to charges, consumers will not find much reason to buy narrowband, telephone line-based Internet access. Only with wideband full-motion video-style services will the medium become compelling to any but a literate, adventurous minority. And despite all the glitzy trials and allianceware, wideband will not be ubiquitous until after the turn of the century.

There is another way, though. What if all the companies, with their slick Web sites, were to sponsor access to their Webmercials, just as they sponsor access to their product information and support with 800 numbers? It wouldn't be unduly expensive, and it wouldn't be too hard to do. The Internet wasn't built to be used this way -- the Department of Defense doesn't need 800 numbers -- but it is time for a change.

With sponsored access, companies could remove the main barrier to creating a true mass market. Ad-hoc sponsored access would be a painless way for the average consumer to try out the Internet on an impulse, for free, whenever the urge strikes.

Toll-free network numbers (read: URLs) could be published widely. The access software could be bundled with computers and CD-ROMs (and soon audio CDs) or simply handed out in stores and by mail, as many marketers are already doing.

Interactive Media Works has taken an interesting step in this direction, with its SampleNET service. Like prepaid phone cards, users get 30 to 90 minutes of sponsored Web surfing. All that is missing is an Internet provider that enables consumers to make a toll-free call. Is that so hard?

Not really. Simple protocols to add capabilities for session (call) control and charging can be defined and layered on top of the existing Internet protocols. Done properly, such a facility would be less costly than voice 800 service.

The basic idea is simply to identify and encapsulate sessions from callers requesting toll-free calls. Once encapsulated, the access provider's system would confine that connection to those hosts that are set up to accept such calls. Ideally, protocols would be standardized to allow such access from any access provider to any accepting server. However, any single access provider could set up such a mechanism by itself -- at least to access servers using that provider's protocols and accepting its billings.

The "toll-free" service provider could attract marketers and advertisers, gaining the opportunity to bundle its regular access software through their distribution channels. It also could become the established provider to those ad-hoc users and thus be well-positioned to upgrade those users to full paying accounts whenever they became tempted to graduate to the open net. Are any network companies out there looking for a quick return on a modest investment?

With such offerings, marketers and advertisers could use the net to reach the entire population of modem-equipped users. Consumers would finally have their "killer application." If you build it and find someone else to pay for it, they will come.

Richard Reisman is president and founder of Teleshuttle Corp., an online software and marketing services firm based in New York.


Copyright (c) 1995 Interactive Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Interactive Enterprises, LLC is prohibited. Interactive Week and the Interactive Week logo are trademarks of Interactive Enterprises, LLC.


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