The Changing Face of the Internet

When the Toronto FreeNet was first conceived, the internet was seen as being primarily an emerging tool for communications, and like most new things, cost a great deal of money. TFN was created to insure that this vital resource would not be beyond the reach of Toronto citizens who lacked the financial means to pay its high costs.

Our concern was that the average citizens not find themselves excluded from the new wave of business and learning that would be facilitated by this rapidly growing medium. Your FreeNet remains committed to this principle and purpose.

But the internet has grown in other ways. What started out as a communications tool has grown into a mass entertainment medium, and the average cost for getting connected has dropped dramatically. This has created a new 'image' for the internet. One that makes it much harder to obtain corporate sponsorship and funding.

A New Funding Model

Even though the internet is still a vital communications tool, many potential sponsors are far less willing to support something they see as 'entertainment', feeling there is less 'need' with the more accessible pricing of today's internet. A few organizations still support us, with a clear vision of the importance of the internet, and we thank them. But we need to do more to insure the continued success of the Toronto FreeNet.

Without doubt, there are many Torontonians who can afford a small amount of money for internet access. As a not-for-profit organization, TFN still has the financial advantage of being able to provide the internet at a substantially reduced cost. By offering an improved level of service at a modest fee, our hope is that the majority of our members will take advantage of this 'deal', and help us cover the basic costs of our operation.

But there are still going to be those individuals whose financical means are so limited that they can only access the internet for free. TFN will continue to serve this need, but to support it, we need a broader funding base. To this end, we are going to begin offering Premium service levels, on par with the best that other Toronto Internet providers have to offer. The service will be the same, and the prices the same or lower, but the difference is that the 'extra' income from these memberships will be used to support the free service we offer to those who need it.

If each TFN member pays according to their ability, then this vital service will continue to grow and serve the needs of its community.

TFN is NOT free Entertainment

We don't expect our sponsors (and our more generous members) to support people who just want to play online games all day, or go surfing for hours just for 'fun'. So we regret to inform those members of TFN that have been enjoying long hours of 'entertainment' that we will no longer be providing this kind of extended-time access for free. We offer this service to you at the cost level appropriate for your usage.

Unfortunately, we have no way of determining what any person is doing on their TFN connection, and so we must simply limit the amount of time that can be spent online each day. With most modern e-mail clients, mail can be downloaded quite quickly, within a few minutes, then the mail is read, and replies composed, offline. This does not require much time, and so our members will find the basic free service has a very limited amount of connection time. Sufficient for basic e-mail and a small amount of web browsing. It is our hope that most members will upgrade to a low-cost paid account, thereby covering their own costs, and permitting us to extend our service, which leads to.....

Service Improvements

We couldn't expect people to start paying money for "less", so TFN is pleased to announce the introduction of significant improvements, such as the new TFN website and help pages (Oh? You noticed already?), and Personal Web Space Hosting - your own Home Page on the World Wide Web! Plans are in the works to introduce filtering tools to reduce the volume of 'junk' e-mail (aka "spam"), and for other improvements in the areas of account management, and a new volunteer-based UserHelp mail system for those who need help using TFN.

Free Full Service "Information Provider" Accounts for Not-For-Profit Organizations. More than any other sector of our community, various community-based groups lack the funding for the sort of internet access they need. TFN will continue to provide full service to these groups, now with our new web page hosting service. It is our plan to become a central resource for these groups, listing them on our "Community" menu.

Our Apologies