Australian free ISP Globalfreeway moves into the fourth month of service problems to its regional customers. It all started when the company pulled the plug on its Internet connection.
However, the free ISP denies it has switched off its service to customers outside Sydney and Melbourne completely.
According to Globalfreeway's Marketing Manager Doug Gorske, accounts in these areas are still active, although users are unable to access email through the Internet dial-up connection.
"It may not be business as usual at Globalfreeway, but we are working to get the business back to normal," Gorske said.
In September 2000, Globalfreeway turned off its Internet connection service to customers outside Sydney and Melbourne due to financial costs and capacity problems.
The free ISP was using a backend service from Telstra called Dial Connect. The service - using a single dial-up number for all areas outside the two major cities - had a capacity to connect up to 40,000 customers.
Globalfreeway claims it was swamped by up 70,000 regional customers and was forced to turn the service off.
The ISP claims services will be 'up and running' to regional customers in about six weeks through an alternative Internet service provider - UUNET - which will supply backend solutions.
"[The reconnection has] just taken a bit longer than expected," Gorske said.
Despite ongoing technical problems, Globalfreeway stands firmly by the notion that customers will keep coming back because it's free.
Globalfreeway experienced another outage at the weekend, affecting Sydney and Melbourne customers who were connected to a separate service - leaving users without email access for up to four days.
Gorske told ZDNet the outage occurred due to a technical glitch, which caused restricted bandwidth to customers.
"We're just the same as any other dotcom company, we have our ups and downs," Gorske said.
Shoud be called GOBBLEFREEWAY. Globle freeway SUCKS!!!!!. They said they would be back online soon.....Still waiting 5 years (ish) later