Free Web access every weekend

A trial last night offering toll-free telephone access to the Internet is being extended until the end of March. A statement issued last by pioneering Internet Service Provider, The X-Stream Network, said: "X-Stream's free call day has been so successful that we are extending the offer of free calls again this weekend starting at Friday midnight, right through to Sunday midnight and then every weekend until the end March. "No other ISP has ever given you more, and we'll keep on doing it." Staff at the company's London offices worked throughout the night fielding telephone calls from users anxious to make use of the free service. But the service has already received stinging criticism from some who complained that they simply couldn't get connected to the service. Others said that even when they did log on they were kicked off in a matter of minutes. One net user said his modem dialled the 0800 number more than 200 times between 6pm and midnight without success. Another user, who used a newsgroup to vent his anger said: "I connected first time at 6pm and the connection died after about 10 minutes. "I dialled in again, about an hour later and got 300 busy tones I got through again but the connection only lasted five minutes." X-Stream's MD Paul Myers was unavailable for comment this morning. ®