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For a fixed monthly fee subscribers to this service will be able to access the Internet continuously at speeds of up to 512 kilobytes per second (kpbs). This means you will able to send and receive data between 10 and 20 times quicker than if you were using a normal dial-up connection. However, like all the best things in life, Freeserve will no longer provide this special service completely gratis. No way! This privilege will cost £49.99 a month. That includes VAT and installation charges. Subscribers will also still be able to make voice and fax calls as well whilst being connected to the Internet.
However, from a business point of view this slightly changes Freeserve's model yet again. In its first incarnation Freeserve's free Internet service provision was revolutionary. The company made money from a cut of the telecom charges its users incurred. With lower local call rates and flat connection fees, this free ISP side of the business looked likely to deteriorate slightly.
Indeed this morning cable telecom company Telewest (LSE: TWT) said it plans to offer a flat rate £10 a month service called SurfUnlimited. As long as you have a Telewest telephone line and spend £10 in other calls and associated charges, you can get free unlimited access to the World Wide Web for this £10 monthly fee. For this though you will only get access at the normal speed.
In the wake of this and other assorted telecom lash-backs instead Freeserve trumpeted its merits as an addictive portal, or entry to the Internet. The group has aggregated a lot of interesting comment on its website, making it a home page for millions of users. Now again, this ADSL provision puts Freeserve back in the realm of an Internet connection provider, hoping to make more of its revenue from charging users to log-on via this high-speed connection.
However, in fact this latest move is a combination of the two previous business models Freeserve has followed. If you take up the ADSL service, you will have access to the new enhanced content Freeserve has secured on this channel from 20 providers. These include a 24 hour news service from ITN; music videos from Virgin music; and music MP3 downloads from peoplesound.com.
This rich content shows the capabilities the Internet will provide in the future as many services converge and are able to be offered from one PC-cum-TV platform. People might dismiss Freeserve, as voters in our Duelling Fools debate on the company's business seem to have conclusively done. However, the group does seem to strike innovative deals, using its highly-valued paper. With its 1.675m "active registered account holders", the group can market these premium services to a wide audience. It will be interesting to see what the take up is for this ADSL service to start with.
Tell us what you think on the Fool's Eye View message board or the Freeserve message board.
The next Fool's Eye View will be published at 12:30pm today, followed by one at around 3pm and another at 5:30pm.
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