The model has been copied by other European companies, such as Germany.net in Germany, Kingfisher in France, Tiscali in Italy, and Econophone, Sunrise, and Span in Switzerland. European businesses, from phone companies to book retailers and banks to sporting clubs, are scrambling to offer free Internet access and muster enough users to attract advertising money and commission on sales through their sites. It is not an extra feature. It argues that it takes more than just a free service to attract users. We have an ability to bill customers who may be reluctant to give out credit card information.
Free services have no customer records.
Instead of dropping its subscription fees, AOL is trying to get the telephone operators to drop their local call charges. Telecoms and competition Three months ago, European Union regulators began investigating Deutsche Telekom after AOL Bertelsmann Europe complained that Europe's largest phone company was using its power to suppress competition in the Internet market. If it merges with Telecom Italia, that will be another point the European Commission will look at. The number of Internet users in Europe is expected to more than double to 88 million by 2005, according to U.K. market researcher Datamonitor. E-commerce will be the big revenue generator.