CWC cuts free phone calls.

Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) is to press ahead with plans to scrap free phone calls for some of its customers. The move will affect internet access calls from 15 December, around 70,000 CWC customers will have to pay £10 a month to make unmetered calls to local business numbers - including some Internet access numbers.

Some customers had hoped CWC would abandon the charge, first mooted in August, following criticism by telecoms watchdog Oftel of CWC's handling of the charge.Customers received a letter last week informing them of the deadline.

CWC said there would be no turnaround, despite Oftel receiving 350 complaints.Earlier this year, Oftel had called on CWC to extend its original 1 September deadline, to explain the new terms and conditions more clearly and to give customers at least a month's notice.

'Their service makes no attempt to draw in new clients. It looks as if they are trying to price people who use their phones for the Internet out of the market,' said one disgruntled CWC customer.