Called www.myschoolisp.com.au the service offers primary and secondary schools within Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane a chance to raise funds by offering students and their parents low-cost Internet access. According to www.myschoolISP.com.au director Darryl Millar the school receives a payment for every customer who signs up using a referrer code the school can obtain by registering with the myschoolisp Web site.
"We are in a situation where people are already paying AU$25 or AU$27 a week for their Internet connection, we can reduce that rate down to AU$13.75, and let them contribute something back to the school," Millar said. "It is also an opportunity for schools to add value to the service by offering Internet training classes and things like that."
At AU$13.75 per month, the myschoolisp access offering is dial-up service with no download limits, no time of day restrictions and a four-hour session limit. AccessOnly is also looking at rolling a similar service out into regional areas of Australia at a cost of AU$19.95 per month. Schools receive a payment of AU$2 per subscriber per month, and are not obliged to actively promote the service or pay any up front costs for participating.
Participating schools are able enrol in the program via the www.myschool.com.au Web site, and are provided with basic training material and fund raising ideas.
"There are cheaper Internet services available - but they ask you to sign up for 12 months, and tie in your mobile and home phone services," Millar said. "We are pitching the service somewhere in the middle, so that it offers both the price and the flexibility."
As one of the founders of the AccessOnly ISP, Millar believes his business model will survive the ongoing consolidation facing the ISP industry as the company invests in bandwidth offered by other providers, rather than owning their own infrastructure.
"We don't have a bank of modems in a shed somewhere, we use a Telstra and Sprint backbone and the longest part of establishing the business so far has been setting up that relationship with the telcos," Millar said. "The service is now fully paid up for the next nine months, and we expect a number of schools to come on board within the next few weeks".
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