While switching ISPs I am going to be without broadband for about ten days. I am a heavy internet user (a researcher) and have a BT free evening and weekend calls that covers 03 numbers but not 08.

The only dial-up ISPs I can find are 08 numbers. I could run up a pretty heft bill in ten days!

Is there ANY dial-up ISP that uses an 03 number? Or a free number?

I guess not, but it's worth a shot!

HW

I do think ISPs should consider providing a geographical dial-up service for customers awaiting ADSL connection, or for when there's a fault. The landscape is very different from when we used to search for dial-up ISPs' numbers, and when BT introduced their policy of charging differently for them: in those days, almost everyone used dial-up. If such geographical numbers were made available by ISPs only for their own customers using a password, it should work out fine - it's not as if the customers are going to use a dial-up number once they have access to ADSL.

As for your 10 days, you will presumably not be paying for broadband for that period, so the money you save can either be used for paying the 0845 costs, or for subscribing to an 0800 dial-up service.

The whole issue of it taking two weeks to get ADSL connected needs to be sorted out. No-one would wait that long for other utilities, not even a landline phone. Internet access needs to be seen as the important utility it is, not as a nicety for game-players.

Wojtczak wrote on Nov 4^th, 2008 at 2:36pm:

You won't know until you check the bill, or if you view your account online you can check after one trial call. BT's terms still say it excludes "national geographic numbers used to dial up ISP's, other non voice calls and calls to the Channel Islands". You are unlikely to get far complaining about your bill if the number was for an ISP, as the terms say all numbers for ISPs are excluded. If you happened to use a number that BT didn't know was an ISP, that would be considered lucky, rather than considering BT to be breaking their terms by not providing a list.

Dave wrote on Nov 4^th, 2008 at 3:38pm:

Useful page! But even when entering a number that's not excluded, it says:

Quote:

Does that mean they still reserve the right to charge? And are they saying that fax numbers are supposed to be excluded too?

irrelevant wrote on Nov 4^th, 2008 at 8:15pm:

Which tariff were you on? There are a number of T-Mobile PAYG tariffs, many of which were withdrawn in September.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-advice/our-brochures/

There current "talk and text" PAYG tariff has a daily price cap for internet access of just £1, but it has a fair use policy of 40MB. It also says:
Quote:

irrelevant wrote on Nov 5^th, 2008 at 11:37am:

Web-n-walk is what you get as standard on PAYG, which I quoted earlier, with a £1 cap. The "pay per day" above is a more advanced product that allows access to wi-fi as wall as mobile broadband (which presumably includes 3G?) I don't know if that's available as an add-on for PAYG or just for contract customers.