NetServices sells wholesale business to ezeeDSL

• Tags:
• Isp Biscit,
• Broadband Business,
• Consumer Broadband,
• Ezeedsl

David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 08 May 2007 13:37 BST

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NetServices, the broadband wholesaler which last year found itself criticised for cutting off some of its small ISP customers and steering their users to another provider, has sold its wholesale business to that same provider.

NetServices said on Tuesday that 186k — also known as ezeeDSL — had bought its consumer broadband business for almost £1.1m. The deal involved the transfer of 174 reseller contracts, representing around 23,000 end users, although 23 "profitable reseller contracts" have been retained by NetServices.

Last year NetServices became embroiled in a dispute with the ISP Biscit, which had recently bought another provider, V21. NetServices — V21's wholesale supplier — cut off its connectivity, blaming unpaid "burst bandwidth charges". It then tried to migrate V21's users over to little-known ezeeDSL/186k, but Biscit subsequently sued NetServices and stopped the migration. The case became central to Ofcom's decision, which was put into practice in February this year, to let users change ISPs at will.

The Biscit/V21 incident was not the first time that NetServices had cut off a customer and tried to transfer its users to ezeeDSL — the same had been done with the ISPs E7even and Fast24 in the preceding months. NetServices has, however, always denied any kind of special relationship with ezeeDSL. After losing its legal battle with Biscit — which itself subsequently went into administration — NetServices began to scale back its consumer broadband wholesale contracts, culminating in Tuesday's announcement.

"I am delighted that we have been able to reach agreement with 186k for the transfer of these contracts," said NetServices' chief executive, Mark Vickers. "186k will continue to service the transferring clients over our proprietary portal… to ensure that they are serviced as well in the future as they have been by NetServices to date. The deal reduces our exposure to the consumer broadband business and will enable NetServices to focus completely on our strategic aim of being a leading supplier of converged voice and data infrastructure solutions."

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