The docklands-based UK ISP that's perhaps best known for offering a free laptop with cheap broadband connections, RedTen Internet, has been cut-off by supplier BT Wholesale because of a "failure to meet its financial commitments", claimed BT (not paying their bills).

Customers were met with the following message after trying to connect and later offered the option of migrating to a new ISP (MAC) or ceasing the line:


However, RedTen has denied BTs statement and instead claims to be in the process of "upgrading the servers from 8 megabytes to 24 megabytes [per second]" [ED: An ISP should probably know that it's Megabits, not bytes]. The provider did not comment on its financial situation and encouraged customers not to use BT's migration proposal.

It's understood that NJP Services, a wholesale ISP services provider best known for its links with small ISP Fast4, is attempting to help migrate RedTen's customers on to its own murphx supplied platform. The work is expected to be completed by 18th March 2008, which is a long time to wait for your broadband to return.

RedTen claims to have received numerous customer complaints about BT's service, which prompted it to hunt for a new supplier. However, such issues rarely occur on a wider scale without the ISP doing something wrong too. Meanwhile customers have been left in disarray, with many being subscribed to RedTen's lengthy 36 month contracts that accompanied the free laptop offer.

RedTen's new supplier, NJP Services, remains un-phased by the provider’s apparent billing dispute with BT:


The Register notes that RedTen's customers should expect to receive the same service features as they did before, which apparently includes no maximum limit on data usage. However the murphx platform being used is known to be more restrictive, as indicated by Fast4's recent migration and new usage allowances, suggesting that such a position may prove difficult to maintain.

Details of NJP’s risk assessment have not been made public, although BT is not ‘usually’ the sort of company to cut-off an ISP without some sort of semi-valid reason.