Speakeasy (ISP)

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Speakeasy, Inc.

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	Seattle, Washington (1996)
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington
Key people	Michael Apgar, Founder Bruce A. Chatterley, President & CEO
Industry	Internet & Communications
Products	ISP, VoIP
Revenue	$65.60 million USD (2005)
Employees	381 (2008)
Website	www.speakeasy.net

Speakeasy, Inc. is a broadband internet service provider and Voice over IP carrier based in Seattle, Washington. They are known for their liberal usage policies for home users whereby subscribers are explicitly permitted to run any number of servers^[1] and are permitted to resell their connectivity to others through the "NetShare" service.^[2] They are also known for their support of Linux and BSD-derivative operating systems, and were the first provider to offer a customized version of Mozilla Firefox to customers, in January 2005.^[3]

[edit] History

In 1994, Gretchen Apgar and husband Mike opened a cybercafe in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood with Mike's brother Tyler. They started out with offering connectivity and email services in the area. Customers at the cafe expressed a wish to have the ability to check their email from other location than just the cafe and a series of terminal stations were set up various bars around time. These terminals were marketed under the label, "Rainmail". As computing power expanded and the cost of computers diminished, customers began to express the further wish to access their email from home. Speakeasy put together a bank of modems and offered a dial up service. As of 2008, dialup through Speakeasy is still available for 19$ a month. The move toward DSL took place in 1998.

In late 1999, the company expanded to a national level, offering DSL services throughout the United States. The Speakeasy backbone consists of a dedicated fiber ring that circles the lower 48 with major points of presence (i.e. POP) in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angelos, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C., New York, and Chicago. From the POP to the customers premises a third party vendor (Covad) is contracted to provide data layer connectivity. This is known in networking as the 'last mile'. In the case of Speakeasy, the data-link protocol used is ATM rather than PPPoE.

In 2001, in the face of the collapse of many ISPs as a possible result of the dot-com bust, Speakeasy had marketed a program to allow for simple transfer of accounts, starting with the announcement of the failure of Flashcom, a former DSL internet provider. That same year, the cybercafe burned down in an electrical fire, forcing the company to focus on the internet business.^[4]

In September 2003, Bruce Chatterley was made CEO of the company.

In summer of 2004, the company announced simultaneously their entry into VOIP, and their Onelink package, which allows a DSL subscriber to maintain an ADSL without the requirement of a telco line.

In spring of 2006 Apgar stepped down as chairman and moved on to a startup company Ookla that he created while at Speakeasy. Mike still remains on the board and takes an active role in the company.

On March 27, 2007 press releases by both companies announced the acquisition of Speakeasy by Best Buy, a Fortune 100 retail chain operating in the US, Canada and China. Best Buy plans to offer Speakeasy broadband and VOIP services to small businesses through their Best Buy for Business unit.^[5]