The telephone toll

Elsewhere in Europe, the picture differs widely, and a few people have an easier time. In the Scandinavian countries, where the telecommunications infrastructure is highly developed, Net access of all kinds is cheaper and more prevalent -- even more than the United States in some cases. In Germany, nearly one in five phone users has adopted ISDN (a digital phone-line service that can deliver both voice and data).

According to BMRB International, a market research firm, more than half of the Swedish population, nearly 50 percent of Finns and 46 percent of Danes have used the Internet. Nonetheless, in most European countries Internet users are even worse off than they are here in Britain: According to BMRB's numbers, just under a third of the U.K., the Netherlands, Ireland and Austria have used the Internet; in France and Belgium it's a quarter, and a fifth in Germany and Spain. Only 19 percent of Italians have ever used the Internet.

Given the high cost of phone service, it's not surprising that 1998 saw a series of "cyberstrikes" across the continent by disgruntled Internet users. In September and October, several Spanish Internet groups urged Internet users to stay offline for a day to protest a planned rate hike and plead for a flat-rate tariff for Internet calls. Though they didn't get a flat rate, they did persuade Telefonica de Espana, S.A, which has the monopoly on local-rate calls, to offer discount plans.

In October, Italian users also registered their discontent and won similar concessions. Soon protest spread across Europe. By the end of the year protests had taken place in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and Poland. The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications now plans to bring together campaigners from across Europe for a strike in the middle of 1999 and has set up a site to coordinate the protest. A group of French cyberstrikers, the Association of Unhappy Internauts, demonstrated in mid-December and has already announced a second strike for the end of January, demanding a flat monthly rate of $36 for local calls.

There is a big "chicken and egg" problem for much of Europe. Fewer Internet users means less local content, which means Internet providers have to purchase expensive trans-Atlantic bandwidth to the U.S. to give their customers access to the data held there. And because European users have much more limited access to content relevant to them, like TV guides, events listings, local news and sports, the Internet is less appealing, so growth remains slower.

Language is another obvious barrier, given the English-dominated nature of the Internet, and the difference in time zones means anything "real-time" like chat rooms, live broadcasts and online gaming are all less convenient for Europeans. There are also substantial barriers to Internet shopping. American Web sites often sell products at significantly lower prices than Europeans often have to pay, but some don't sell outside the continental U.S., and those that do usually charge much more for overseas delivery, which can also take longer (sea mail can take eight weeks). Even bill payment can present a problem, as customers nearly always need credit cards, and these are still in less widespread use in Europe than in America.

Whatever the problems, it is clear to European leaders as it is to North Americans that the Internet will be central to future economic development, and there are already some hopeful signs.

In Ireland, an Advisory Committee on Telecommunications recommended a decrease in the price of Internet access and urged the main telephone company to consider flat-rate Net access. While it has yet to back fixed-price Net access, Telecom Eireann has announced new, lower-priced rates for Internet users. Here in the U.K., the government advertised in November to fill the post of "Digital Envoy" -- an official charged with boosting e-commerce and Internet use.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a pair of inventive private-sector companies have found a way to give surfers what they want. A German magazine, Tomorrow, has just teamed up with a telephone company, Mobilcom, to offer a limited flat-rate service. For $45 a month (ISP and telephone charges combined), users in major cities across Germany can dial into the Internet as long as they like between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. weekdays and all weekend. Outside those times they pay as little as $2.90 an hour.

It may not amount to a bargain in American terms, but it is a start.

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