Over the weekend, the one million registered users to Free World Dialup (FWD) were told that free is no longer free. After 12 years of free operations, users will be asked to pay $30 per year as of September 1, 2008. The announcement also named Daniel Beringer, as CEO of FWD.

In an email sent out on Friday by FWD founder and VoIP pundit Jeff Pulver, the $30 yearly fee is being justified as a “magic number” that is only “10%” of the cost of Vonage’s unlimited usage plan. However, Pulver has disavowed any connections with old style telephony and the PSTN, vowing not to chase per-minute arbitrage for lower-cost long distance calling as Skype, Jajah and others have done.