Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Jeremy Paxman reports on the current price of accessing the internet in Britain. Calls are charged at the local rate, but some users - like the competitive internet gaming "clans" who compete in online multiplayer games like Quake - spend hours a day online. At a recent European Quake tournament, a LAN (local area network) was set up for competitors, due to the prohibitive cost of competing online. Newsnight speaks to two competitive gamers, "Acquiesce" and "Dodgy", about the realities of online gaming in the UK, where pay-per-minute calls and expensive ISDN lines can leave professional gamers with quarterly phone bills of over £700.
In the United States of America, there are no charges, and critics are calling for British Telecom to follow suit, to stimulate e-commerce and remain competitive in the internet space. Paxman chairs a studio debate between David Phillips, the Managing Director of AOL UK, and Dr David Cleevely, founder of the telecommunications consultancy Analysys, about whether British Telecom's practices are holding back internet adoption in Britain.
Clip taken from Newsnight, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 9 June, 1999.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1
You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - bbc.co.uk/archive
Jeremy Paxman reports on the current price of accessing the internet in Britain. Calls are charged at the local rate, but some users - like the competitive internet gaming "clans" who compete in online multiplayer games like Quake - spend hours a day online. At a recent European Quake tournament, a LAN (local area network) was set up for competitors, due to the prohibitive cost of competing online. Newsnight speaks to two competitive gamers, "Acquiesce" and "Dodgy", about the realities of online gaming in the UK, where pay-per-minute calls and expensive ISDN lines can leave professional gamers with quarterly phone bills of over £700.
In the United States of America, there are no charges, and critics are calling for British Telecom to follow suit, to stimulate e-commerce and remain competitive in the internet space. Paxman chairs a studio debate between David Phillips, the Managing Director of AOL UK, and Dr David Cleevely, founder of the telecommunications consultancy Analysys, about whether British Telecom's practices are holding back internet adoption in Britain.
Clip taken from Newsnight, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 9 June, 1999.
You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.
Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1
You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - bbc.co.uk/archive
