Blueyonder to charge for phone support

Blueyonder, the broadband ISP of cable operator Telewest Broadband, will commence charging calls to technical support at local rates from March.

In an emailed announcement to subscribers, the company said: "Telewest Broadband is introducing a range of product and pricing changes in March this year. This announcement is one of the many ways we will be letting customers know about these changes. By the end of this month, every customer will have received a letter and brochure explaining all the changes."

The company notes that it is not increasing prices for its 512kbps and 1Mbps broadband internet access services - this will still cost £25/mo and £35/mo respectively for customers who also have a Telewest phone line. In addition, email and Usenet technical support remains free.

Explaining the decision, the Blueyonder team issued a further announcement, saying: "We have not taken this decision lightly. During last year we made a number of changes to improve our service. For example, we have launched help information through our interactive service on digital television and also launched the blueyonder Instant Support Tool – which you can download to your PC and use to help fix faults without needing to call. However, we were still finding that we were getting calls from customers using other ISPs wanting to take advantage of our free service. Also, we still get calls that are not related to true technical support but are questions like ‘What is the best site for music downloads’, or that could be easily answered by using our help site or freephone service status and help line. These calls contribute to long wait times and make it harder for us to help those blueyonder customers that really do need support from our helpdesk."

Blueyonder's help site can be found at help.blueyonder.co.uk.