No more freeloading, say bosses

Free services on the Internet may soon be a thing of the past if a new idea proves popular. A system of charging people through phone bills for anything from viewing individual pages to downloading movie clips is being considered by a number of companies. If that happens, the way we use the Web will change significantly.

The most common way of extracting cash from Internet users is via credit cards but security concerns and the fact they don't suit small payments are problems. Another payment method - much loved by porn sites - is by downloading a Dial-Up programme that connects you to a restricted site through a Premium Rate number but this can make costs prohibitive.

A new alternative is proving more attractive. It involves asking website visitors to supply a mobile phone number when they want to view premium content. An SMS text message containing a PIN will then be sent to the user's phone which will give access to the restricted area on the site at a cost of up to £1.50 per message.

It is not just limited to mobile phones though. Other proposals include getting users to phone premium rate 0898 numbers to obtain the PIN, with a similar cost of around £1 being added to a terrestrial bill.

Bernadette Lyons is managing director of Mobileway, one of the companies involved in the new proposals. She believes this new approach to charging will enable many sites to become financially viable. 'It works very well with digital content, particularly where there hasn't been a way to charge for it in the past. This has been a dilemma for many websites - how do

they get their users to contribute to the costs of providing the site. Games, news, competitions and even video-streaming would suit this very well.'

Websites that offer video-clips have struggled to cover the costs of providing the streams, but this method of payment should help bring in revenue. Downloading a clip of a film such as Ocean's Eleven (pictured above) from a movie website could involve using such a system in the near future.

A website called www.battlemail.com is already charging people via SMS texts to play their Web-based game CatAttack. Users initially download and play the game for free, but to access advanced features they need a code that is sent to their mobile phone on request for £1.18.

A number of news providers are also considering putting the idea into action by charging visitors to see the top stories of the day. James Cornish, digital editor at the Press Association, believes this method of payment could be the future of accessing content online. He said: 'For too long people have had a free lunch but websites are very expensive operations and need to be paid for. No other form of charging for small amounts is as good as this.'

Whether we like it or not, if we want quality on the Net, we will eventually have to pay for it.