Freeserve
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Freeserve.com plc | |
 |
|
| Type of Company | Defunct |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Leeds, UK |
| Industry | Internet & Communications |
| Products | Internet service |
Freeserve was a UK Internet Service Provider, founded in 1998 from a project between Dixons Group plc and Leeds-based hosting provider Planet Online to provide free Internet access to customers buying new home PCs from Dixons stores.
Freeserve was among the first of the UK's ISPs to dispense with the usual monthly subscription fee for Internet access, and instead to collect a proportion of the standard telephone line charges. (At the time virtually all Internet access in the UK was by dial-up access via BT lines.) Further revenue was obtained from advertisements on Freeserve's homepage, which was set as the default page in the customers' web browsers upon installing the Freeserve connection software. Freeserve's pricing model was considered controversial at the time and, in January 1999 Oftel announced that they would carry out an investigation[1].
Freeserve floated on the stock market in July 1999 (as Freeserve.com plc), at which point they had approximately 1.5 million subscribers and were valued at between £1.31bn and £1.51bn ($2.02bn and $2.34bn)[2].
By September 2000, Freeserve had more than 2 million active subscribers[3]. This was vastly more than the incumbent telephony provider BT, something that was unusual for a European ISP.
Freeserve was bought by the France Telecom-owned company Wanadoo in 2000 for £1.65bn ($2.37bn) and changed its name to Wanadoo UK plc on April 28, 2004. [4].
Following a rebranding exercise in June 2006, Freeserve and Wanadoo UK now form part of the UK operation of Orange, and are known as Orange Broadband.
