Internet Use In Egypt Grows With Free ISPs
from the still-growing dept
In what seems like something of an exact replica of a Wired article from a few months back, the Associated Press has an article about how internet use is soaring in Egypt, since there are no more ISP fees. You simply dial up to whatever ISP you want, and pay the telephone call costs (somewhere between $0.20 and $0.25 per hour). The government run telco takes 30% of that money, and the rest goes to the ISP you chose. So, now the various ISPs can't compete on price - so they compete on anything else, such as service level, speed, reliability, or what else they offer. Since the ISPs get more money the longer you stay online, they also have more incentive to keep you online, and therefore are promoting things like instant messaging programs. It's definitely an interesting business model, which I think could make sense for some other areas (such as music sharing, if the music industry ever stopped to actually think about things).
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