Zetnet
Encyclopedia
Zetnet is one of the UK's oldest ISPs (see list of UK ISPs by age) and according to a New Scientist article is the brainchild of Ghufar Razaq and Graeme Storey. It was founded in Lerwick
, on the Shetland Isles by Ghufar Razaq, Graeme Storey, Tim Cole and Paul Martin. According to the Shetland Fishing News, a journal of Shetland's Fishing Industries, the company began trading on 13 October 1994.
In 1996, Zetnet was thrown into the media spotlight through what nearly became a landmark legal case testing UK copyright laws on the internet.
In March 1999 Zetnet founded online gaming service Netgames UK, the brainchild of Sandy Sandom and Phil O'Malley. It was originally a wholly owned subsidiary, sharing Zetnet technical staff, but was sold in May 2000 and incorporated as Netgames UK Ltd. The company was run successfully until August 2001 when reports of a press release detailing a fall-out between Netgames UK management and its technical staff were seen.
In 1999, Zetnet hosted the CVS
tree for the eggdrop
project, an IRC bot
. The CVS was maintained by staff member Jonathan Miles (Cybah), who also coordinated and committed patch contributions for the Eggdrop Development Team.
In 2001, Zetnet took over Charis Internet Services, a Birmingham
-based ISP.
In January 2002 Zetnet bought the customers of troubled ISP Cloud-Nine Communications, which had suffered a DDoS attack. Cloud Nine were based in Basingstoke
, run by CEO Emeric Miszti and Operations Director John Parr.
On May 12, 2003, Zetnet co-founder and Technical Director, Tim Cole, died. The Zetnet home page was changed during the following week, to say "with great sadness Zetnet announces the death of Tim Cole co-founder director" and also "Tim had been suffering with heart problems for many years. On Sunday evening he had a heart attack from which he did not recover". According to an unconfirmed source, Tim's headstone says simply "internet pioneer" and can be found in the yard of the Dunrossness Kirk, Dunrossness
in the south of Shetland.
In February 2005, Zetnet closed its head office in the Shetland Isles. According to The Shetland News
, much of Zetnet's operations were run from an office in Manchester at the time.
In October 2005 Zetnet Services Ltd was put into administration owing creditors a large sum of money and an administration committee was later formed by the creditors to investigate the finances of the company.
The administrators sold the assets and good will of the company to Zetnet Ltd which was formed by some of the existing directors of Zetnet Services Ltd and some new shareholders - with John Hyslop as managing director.
In May 2007, a press release surfaced on PRWeb which indicated that Zetnet Ltd was to be purchased by Solutrea Ltd, a "wireless and digital signage solutions provider". John Hyslop was quoted as Zetnet's Managing Director at the time. The deal was reported to have been worth "£857,000 in cash upon closing". However, the agreement was "subject to approval by the Powerstar International Inc. (TSX.V : PWS), board of directors and the Toronto Ventures Exchange". No further information could be found to confirm that this deal was ever completed.
In July 2008, Zetnet was acquired by Breathe Networks Limited (BNL), according to a news article by ISPreview.co.uk. Zetnet joined other BNL brands such as breathe, macunlimited, Ecosse, Intensive Networks, Bush Internet and Fast4. Although BNL stated an intent to operate Zetnet independently, it subsequently consolidated a number of Zetnet's services into its own platform during the first half of 2009, with some problems.
On 16 July 2009 Zetnet Ltd was placed into administration.
Breathe had taken the remarkable decision not to notify any of Zetnet's customers before moving them to their servers, nor had they (Breathe) taken a secure backup of the Zetnet database of e-mail username and password combinations prior to the failed migration process. This resulted in an unprecedented request for customers to complete a form on the Zetnet website detailing their full e-mail address and associated password. Regrettably, even this 'Last ditch' attempt to recover some credibility failed in many cases and there was no way that 'Catch-all' addresses could be recovered by this process.
During the chaos which followed, customers were unable to contact Zetnet by telephone or e-mail to resolve website and e-mail issues. It seems that this loss of service is a regular feature of Breathe acquisitions.
and The Shetland News
, over copyright infringement. The web sites of both customers were hosted by Zetnet.
Lerwick
Lerwick is the capital and main port of the Shetland Islands, Scotland, located more than 100 miles off the north coast of mainland Scotland on the east coast of the Shetland Mainland...
, on the Shetland Isles by Ghufar Razaq, Graeme Storey, Tim Cole and Paul Martin. According to the Shetland Fishing News, a journal of Shetland's Fishing Industries, the company began trading on 13 October 1994.
History
In October 1994, Zetnet began trading as Zetnet Services. It became a Limited Company (Zetnet Services Ltd) in October 1995.In 1996, Zetnet was thrown into the media spotlight through what nearly became a landmark legal case testing UK copyright laws on the internet.
In March 1999 Zetnet founded online gaming service Netgames UK, the brainchild of Sandy Sandom and Phil O'Malley. It was originally a wholly owned subsidiary, sharing Zetnet technical staff, but was sold in May 2000 and incorporated as Netgames UK Ltd. The company was run successfully until August 2001 when reports of a press release detailing a fall-out between Netgames UK management and its technical staff were seen.
In 1999, Zetnet hosted the CVS
Concurrent Versions System
The Concurrent Versions System , also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. Version control system software keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers ...
tree for the eggdrop
Eggdrop
Eggdrop is a popular IRC bot and the oldest still in active development.- Development History :It was originally written by Robey Pointer in December 1993 to help manage and protect the EFnet channel #gayteen....
project, an IRC bot
IRC bot
thumb|409px|right|An IRC bot performing a simple task.An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another user...
. The CVS was maintained by staff member Jonathan Miles (Cybah), who also coordinated and committed patch contributions for the Eggdrop Development Team.
In 2001, Zetnet took over Charis Internet Services, a Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
-based ISP.
In January 2002 Zetnet bought the customers of troubled ISP Cloud-Nine Communications, which had suffered a DDoS attack. Cloud Nine were based in Basingstoke
Basingstoke
Basingstoke is a town in northeast Hampshire, in south central England. It lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon. It is southwest of London, northeast of Southampton, southwest of Reading and northeast of the county town, Winchester. In 2008 it had an estimated population of...
, run by CEO Emeric Miszti and Operations Director John Parr.
On May 12, 2003, Zetnet co-founder and Technical Director, Tim Cole, died. The Zetnet home page was changed during the following week, to say "with great sadness Zetnet announces the death of Tim Cole co-founder director" and also "Tim had been suffering with heart problems for many years. On Sunday evening he had a heart attack from which he did not recover". According to an unconfirmed source, Tim's headstone says simply "internet pioneer" and can be found in the yard of the Dunrossness Kirk, Dunrossness
Dunrossness
Dunrossness, . It is the southernmost parish of Shetland, and includes, Levenwick, Bigton, Scousburgh, Quendale, Virkie, Fair Isle....
in the south of Shetland.
In February 2005, Zetnet closed its head office in the Shetland Isles. According to The Shetland News
The Shetland News
The Shetland News is a news website serving the islands of Shetland, Scotland.Previously, The Shetland News was a weekly newspaper published between 1885 and 1963. The website, published by an unrelated company , was launched in 1995, on the idea of IT entrepreneur Graeme Storey...
, much of Zetnet's operations were run from an office in Manchester at the time.
In October 2005 Zetnet Services Ltd was put into administration owing creditors a large sum of money and an administration committee was later formed by the creditors to investigate the finances of the company.
The administrators sold the assets and good will of the company to Zetnet Ltd which was formed by some of the existing directors of Zetnet Services Ltd and some new shareholders - with John Hyslop as managing director.
In May 2007, a press release surfaced on PRWeb which indicated that Zetnet Ltd was to be purchased by Solutrea Ltd, a "wireless and digital signage solutions provider". John Hyslop was quoted as Zetnet's Managing Director at the time. The deal was reported to have been worth "£857,000 in cash upon closing". However, the agreement was "subject to approval by the Powerstar International Inc. (TSX.V : PWS), board of directors and the Toronto Ventures Exchange". No further information could be found to confirm that this deal was ever completed.
In July 2008, Zetnet was acquired by Breathe Networks Limited (BNL), according to a news article by ISPreview.co.uk. Zetnet joined other BNL brands such as breathe, macunlimited, Ecosse, Intensive Networks, Bush Internet and Fast4. Although BNL stated an intent to operate Zetnet independently, it subsequently consolidated a number of Zetnet's services into its own platform during the first half of 2009, with some problems.
On 16 July 2009 Zetnet Ltd was placed into administration.
Breathe Migration
Zetnet's reputation took a severe nose dive in July 2009 when Breathe's attempts to change the Zetnet email system resulted in thousands of users being unable to access their email for weeks. This tarnished the company's reputation badly with many established long term customers leaving Zetnet to find a reliable ISP.Breathe had taken the remarkable decision not to notify any of Zetnet's customers before moving them to their servers, nor had they (Breathe) taken a secure backup of the Zetnet database of e-mail username and password combinations prior to the failed migration process. This resulted in an unprecedented request for customers to complete a form on the Zetnet website detailing their full e-mail address and associated password. Regrettably, even this 'Last ditch' attempt to recover some credibility failed in many cases and there was no way that 'Catch-all' addresses could be recovered by this process.
During the chaos which followed, customers were unable to contact Zetnet by telephone or e-mail to resolve website and e-mail issues. It seems that this loss of service is a regular feature of Breathe acquisitions.
Legal case
In 1996, Zetnet was caught in the middle of a legal case between two of its local customers, The Shetland TimesThe Shetland Times
The Shetland Times is a weekly newspaper in Shetland, published on Fridays and based in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland.The newspaper is owned by The Shetland Times Ltd, a company which also operates a publishing arm, a bookshop and a printing company. The Shetland Times Ltd claims to have 55...
and The Shetland News
The Shetland News
The Shetland News is a news website serving the islands of Shetland, Scotland.Previously, The Shetland News was a weekly newspaper published between 1885 and 1963. The website, published by an unrelated company , was launched in 1995, on the idea of IT entrepreneur Graeme Storey...
, over copyright infringement. The web sites of both customers were hosted by Zetnet.