LineOne

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LineOne was an Internet Service Provider in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. LineOne was a joint venture of News International, United News & Media and British Telecom.

[edit] History

Before LineOne was launched in 1997 as a joint venture between News International and British Telecom, it was known as Springboard Internet and previously to that Delphi. This is not to be confused with the company known as Delphi in the United States.

In 1998, United News & Media bought a 33% stake in the company for an undisclosed sum.

LineOne offered customers 0845 (Local Rate) access to the Internet (which required a monthly subsciption) as well as offering e-mail and web hosting services, which were included in the subscription fee.

Freeserve launched in 1998, and was the first major ISP to offer a subscription free dialup service that only charged the standard per minute local call rate for access. LineOne was forced to follow suit with the same service to stem the flow of dialup customers and pressured BT into providing the infrastructure, which it did so and at considerable expense to LineOne.

[edit] From LineOne to Tiscali

In March 1999, News International sold its shares in LineOne as it was concentrating on its own internet services, making British Telecom and United News & Media each 50% owners of LineOne. LineOne moved it's offices to Blackfriar's Bridge from the offices they once occupied next to News International's printworks on the Isle of Dogs. Ajay Chowdhury from United News & Media took over as CEO of LineOne and together with a new team including Mary Turner from AOL and Andy Harwood built LineOne into one of the largest ISP's and most trafficked portals in the UK. Chowdhury left in 2000 to set up NBC Internet Europe and Mary Turner was appointed the General Manager of LineOne.

LineOne was then put up for sale after it became obvious that everyone involved was not going to make the hundreds of millions of pounds that LineOne was originally valued at in the middle of the Dot-com bubble and it was bought by Italian Telecommunications giant Tiscali on April 26th 2001 for GBP £62,000,000 (EUR €100,000,000).

It was rumoured that before this sale, another large Telecommunications giant had offered three to four times as much a year earlier and that by holding out for more money, the LineOne management missed the boat

At the time of acquisition, LineOne had 1.85 Million Subscribers, though the number of active users was probably around the 800,000 mark at the time.

As of 2006, Tiscali continues to offer internet services in the UK