STANDARDS IN England’s schools have risen dramatically in the last five years, Chris Woodhead, the Chief Inspector of Schools, said yesterday. If Oftel modifies the payment structure, forcing companies like Dixons to pay a higher proportion of the phone charge to BT, they may have to charge for their services.Tesco: www.tesco Freeserve: www.freeserve Clickfree: www.btclickfree Main Providers In The UKProvider Service SubscribersDixons Freeserve 1 millionAmerica OnLine AOL/Compuserve 900,000Demon Internet Demon 230,000BT Internet BT Click+ 166,000Microsoft MSN 140,000. Internet experts say BT will also be able to trade on the huge power of its brand while backing ClickFree with a massive advertising budget.The market for free Internet access provision is currently being investigated by Oftel, the telecoms watchdog.BT has complained that the services block its lines and cause congestion, while it receives only a fraction of the call revenue. One of BT’s advantages is that it will attract users of Apple Macintosh computers, who are not able to access the Dixons or Tesco services. Internet providers such as Dixons, and now BT, earn revenue by charging 50p a minute for helpline calls as well as selling advertising and other services through their website.

Dixons’ success has sparked a series of imitators, such as Tesco and even Arsenal Football Club.However, the Tesco service is just for members of its ClubCard loyalty scheme, and the Dixons service is restricted to customers who visit its stores.BT’s ClickFree will be just a phone call away from its millions of domestic customers.It can be downloaded on to a PC or Apple Macintosh, with the only charge being a 50p-a-minute helpline.Subscribers will also be able to shop online due to a link-up between BT and Value Direct, which provides low-cost goods via the Internet.”We are simply responding to the request from customers for a cheaper service to connect to the Internet,” BT’s Internet director John Swingewood said.Free Internet access has become the new battleground in electronic commerce as companies grapple with ways of making money through the medium. It is called ClickFree and will be available just by picking up the phone and ordering a free compact disc or by downloading the software via a modem from BT’s website.
The BT service follows a groundbreaking move by Dixons, whose Freeserve product has taken the Internet access market by storm since its launch in September.Freeserve has grown rapidly to become the UK’s largest Internet access provider with a million members, overtaking the long-established America OnLine, whose monthly subscription service has 900,000 members in the UK. Dr Adrian Rogers, former chairman of the Conservative Family Institute, said: “It’s a horrible, dangerous film.”. THE PROSPECT of free Internet access being extended to virtually every household drew closer yesterday when BT launched a free Internet service.

For it to be scary, you have to get into it and the characters.”Moral campaigners were outraged by the decision. Mark Kermode, a critic who has seen the film more than 200 times, said the BBFC’s decision was overdue. “It’s the greatest film of all time because it gives you what you give it. It’s horror, it has a happy ending, it has a negative ending, it’s an allegory for post-Watergate disillusionment, for the collapse of the family.”In the US, where the video’s been out for years, younger viewers do not get much out of it because it’s a complicated film and nothing much happens for the first hour. Since then, its failure to earn a classification – partly based on the belief that children would see it despite an 18 rating – has become a cause celebre of British film censorship.Mr Duval said that there was no hard evidence that the video had harmed viewers, while he hoped its reputation was sufficient for parents to police their children’s viewing.William Friedkin’s film broke box-office records, won 10 Oscar nominations and even earned approval from sections of the Roman Catholic church, but its reputation as a terrifying tour de force has often overshadowed its virtues as ground-breaking drama.Based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, the film deals with the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl.