Euro1Net finally shut shop :: UK Broadband Usergroup :: Serving the broadband community

Euro1Net finally shut shop

Posted by: eusty on Wednesday, September 06, 2006 - 07:10 AM

As we predicted Euro1Net have now officially stopped trading, just a few weeks after BT cut off 5,000 of it's customers.

Advanced Data Services who trade under the name Euro1Net have emailed all of 1EuroNet customers with the following announcement.

"From: Euro1Net
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 5:23 PM
Subject: Important Customer Notice

Important Customer Notice:

Advanced Data Services has ceased trading.

Dear Customers,

Despite our communications with a number of ISP's who were interested in taking our users and or our company as a going concern, it is with great regret and sadness that we have to report that our talks have proved fruitless.

The recent actions of BT disconnecting the majority of our customers on the 21st August 2006 with no notification that they were going to do so on that date and the frenzied inaccurate media reporting which quickly followed, have had a dramatic impact on our business.

As a direct consequence of the media speculation and negative publicity, other suppliers and service providers including our bank have all now withdrawn their services. This means that our current financial obligations can no longer be met.

As we are now unable to meet our financial obligations we have had no alternative but to make the difficult decision to make our very loyal staff redundant.

Since BT disconnected our users, we have been working tirelessly under difficult circumstances to try and reconnect all our customers to alternative suppliers. However, as we were prevented by BT from generating Migration Authorisation Codes (MAC's) which not only meant our customers would be without service for longer, but also meant that any possible reconnections with an alternative supplier would have cost around 300% more to connect each customer as a new connection, than they would have done as a migration.

These additional costs proved too much to bear for us and the potential buyers of our company who would have needed to pay BT Wholesale an additional Â£160,000 in connection fees.

We would like to apologise to all our customers and would like to thank them for the support that has been offered during this difficult period.

As we have ceased trading and can no longer provide a service to our customers, all customers will be free to connect with another provider of their choice. If in doubt, please contact BT for information on whether your line is clear of our service.

We shall be making a formal complaint to Ofcom concerning the way BT conducted the termination of our customers' service, the impact that this in turn had on our customers and our company as a whole. We look forward to their findings.

From the staff at Euro1Net"

Email to Euro1Net customers

So where does this leave Euro1Net customers? Those who have been cut-off will have no option but to find another ISP and have their lines reactivated, but there is no news on whether those connected to their Talk and Surf product will be able to obtain MAC codes to allow them to migrate to another provider without being disconnected.

Biscit today announced that Euro1Net customers can sign up for its freeMAX phone broadband package and receive one-month's free service. FreeMAX allows Biscit to manage your BT landline , you'll never receive another line rental bill from BT, and provides 120 call minutes per month to non-Biscit landlines at anytime, and a 8Mbps broadband connection with a 2GB monthly download allowance.