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ISPreview takes a look back at the year that was 2000 |
 1999 ended with the ISP industry in confusion, suffering from the onslaught of multiple and unsustainable unmetered ISPs, nobody quite knew what was what. 08004u had finally died and Screaming.Net has about to merge into World Online and form a completely new offering. Other ISPs such as BTInternet and Force9 were also getting in on the act with weekend 0800 (freecall) options. By the time the New Year had dawned it was clear BT and Oftel were aware of the problems plaguing the unmetered ISP revolution. It didn't take long after that for rumours of a new system from BT known as 'Surftime' to circulate. Promising to revolutionise the industry, people remained sceptical. The New Year also brought a small spate of new unmetered ISPs on to the scene, Visual Depth, RedHotAnt, GreatXscape, IC24 and Buzzline all announced packages along a vaguely similar line. Business analysts soon started to question the economic realism and value of such ventures, predicted that most would fail. By the time late spring arrived it was clear that a growing awareness of unmetered ISPs existed, although mainly through the problems many were having. Visual Depth was being investigated by ISP Review, RedHotAnts service was becoming engaged, GreatXscape cut their original offer, IC24's service was overloaded and Buzzline failed to materialise at all. Soon after that the full details of BTSurftime were announced, although ISPs remained unhappy with it and complained to Oftel. BTSurftime continued on its merry way, when in May Oftel announced a radically new system called FRIACO that was exactly what ISPs had been asking for. The Second Generation BTSurftime finally went live during the early summer and several new unmetered ISPs arose with it, Plus.NET, Freeserve and Affinity were among them. However the services up take by ISPs was minimal and billing problems followed by bad publicity didn't go anyway to reversing the situation. Sadly those ISPs that had been holding out for FRIACO were to be disappointed as it failed to surface due to 'Technical Problems' with its design. Then started a truly downward spiral for the industry, but one that was so severe it shocked ISPs and Oftel into a dramatic change. RedHotAnt suddenly became impossible to connect to and EzeSurf went dramatically into liquidation with a bill of £2Million. Following that Visual Depth was exposed as a fraud by ISPr for stealing the services from EzeSurf and marketing it at prices twice as high. Yet it didn't stop there, the long time ISP CallNet0800 discontinued its service and LineOne soon ended up shutting down their 24/7 option. [Print Page | Next Page (2)]>>
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