GMT Jane Wakefield BT SurfTime's PR spin has been unable to save it from disaster, as ISPs turn their noses up at the scheme, and consumers finally have the wool pulled from their eyes. If there is one word Peter Bonfield will not want inscribed on his grave it is SurfTime. Of all the blunders BT has been a party to, SurfTime has to be up there among the worst.
Data is clearly different from voice and deserves a different tariff.
And with the eyes of the Internet nation on it, the telco had to do something. But instead of giving us what we wanted, BT hatched a cunning plan and put its PR machine into overdrive spinning wool to pull over our eyes. It described this as a radical new scheme to enable ISPs to offer unmetered access. Renamed by industry the 'tariff that is the same as the old one but with a press release' it died a death and is filed away now in BT's vaults labelled 'Bad Idea'. Back to the drawing board then.