Differences between current version and revision by previous author of ZFree.
Other diffs: Previous Major Revision, Previous Revision, or view the Annotated Edit History
Newer page: | version 2 | Last edited on Monday, September 2, 2002 5:19:56 pm | by CraigBox | |
Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Monday, September 2, 2002 5:07:25 pm | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
@@ -2,11 +2,13 @@
(Warning - the following may not be 100% accurate, and may contain traces of nuts, but it's the truth as far as I know...)
Most people don't know that there was quite a bit of history behind ZFree. It was a result of Clear's (now TelstraClear) battles to provide telecommunications services in NZ. The local dominant ex-monopoly, TelecomNZ, forced Clear to sign an inter-connect agreement (which itself
-took years of court action and wrangling to get sorted) that had a clause saying that each provider would pay the other 2 cents per minute for a call originating on one's network and terminating on another. For example, if a Clear customer rang a Telecom customer, Clear would pay 2 cents per minute to Telecom. As the majority of NZ'ers (especially businesses) are with Telecom, most of Clear's customers' calls would be to Telecom customers, and cost Clear a lot of money. Clear came up with the rather clever idea of setting up a free ISP, so that lots of customers would ring a Clear number and stay connected for long periods of time. (Most of these users didn't notice or care that their download rates were pretty slow)
.
+took years of court action and wrangling to get sorted) that had a clause saying that each provider would pay the other 2 cents per minute for a call originating on one's network and terminating on another. For example, if a Clear customer rang a Telecom customer, Clear would pay 2 cents per minute to Telecom. As the majority of NZ'ers (especially businesses) are with Telecom, this agreement meant almost every Clear call would attract this surcharge, -
most of Clear's customers' calls would be to Telecom customers.
-Telecom NZ then tried to force ALL ISP's in
the country to use the 0800 network, ostensibly so they could better control IP traffic
, making claims
-such as too
many dial-ups on the normal
phone network could (conceivably) prevent others making 111 calls in emergencies
. And ISP who kept using
the
-
free local calling numbers instead
of the 0800 numbers would have their
customers charged 2 cents per minute. This was to try to stop
Clear, as Telecom felt they were gouging Clear "fair
and square"
. Nevermind that
these new charges
were legally questionable under
the "KiwiShare" arrangement
.
+Then
the Internet boom happened
, and many many companies started getting many
many phone lines put on - which Clear would sell to them for cheaper than Telecom would
. And Clear came up with
the rather clever idea of setting up a
free ISP. Net result - hundreds
of thousands of Telecom
customers would terminate at a
Clear number (ZFree)
and stay connected for long periods of time
. Still at 2c/min. (Most of
these users didn't notice or care that their download rates
were pretty slow). And
the tables turned in Clear's favour
.
-Anyway, the end result is that a new inter-connect agreement was signed that was (slightly?) more favourable to Clear (by scrapping
the 2 cents/min charges [[I think?]),
and Clear no longer had a need for ZFree, which was
just a pawn in a much larger battle..
.
+Telecom NZ then tried to force ALL ISP's in the country to use the 0867 network, ostensibly so they could better control IP traffic, making claims
+such as too many dial-ups on the normal phone network could (conceivably) prevent others making 111 calls in emergencies. Any ISP who kept using the
+free (Clear) local calling numbers instead of the 0867 networkr would have their __customers__ charged the 2 cents per minute directly. (And the customers would say "Why haven't you gone to 0867..." etc. This move was to try and stop their losses under the interconnect agreement with Clear, as Telecom felt they were gouging Clear "fair and square". Nevermind that these new charges were legally questionable under the "KiwiShare" arrangement.
+
+
Anyway, the end result is that a new inter-connect agreement was signed that was scrapped
the 2 cents/min charge
and Clear no longer had a need for ZFree (or a way to make money off it)
, so it closed down -
just a pawn in a much larger battle.