Plusnet

Plusnet plc is a British Internet service provider (ISP) providing broadband and landline services. The company was founded in 1997¹ in Sheffield, and became a public limited company (plc) in July 2004 when it was floated on the Alternative Investment Market. On 30 January 2007, Plusnet was acquired by BT Group, but it continued to operate as a separate business. By December 2013, it had over 750,000 customers across the UK. In 2018, Plusnet was brought into BT Group's BT Consumer division, the CEO of which is Claire Gillies. Plusnet Mobile operated as a mobile virtual network operator using the network of EE until it was closed in 2024.

Plusnet plc is a British Internet service provider (ISP) providing broadband and landline services. The company was founded in 1997 in Sheffield, and became a public limited company (plc) in July 2004 when it was floated on the Alternative Investment Market. On 30 January 2007, Plusnet was acquired by BT Group, but it continued to operate as a separate business. By December 2013, it had over 750,000 customers across the UK. In 2018, Plusnet was brought into BT Group's BT Consumer division, the CEO of which is Claire Gillies. Plusnet Mobile operated as a mobile virtual network operator using the network of EE until it was closed in 2024. ==History== ===Origins=== Company names: FORCE9 INTERNET LIMITED: 15 Nov 1996 – 12 Dec 1997 PLUSNET TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED: 12 Dec 1997 – 07 Jul 2004 PLUSNET PLC: 07 Jul 2004 – 30 Jan 2007 Plusnet's origins go back to 1 February 1997, when Choice Peripherals, a PC computer-peripherals company launched Force9 Internet. Heavily involved in early Plusnet was founder of Choice Peripherals, Paul Cusack (chairman), who later went on to create the hardware retailer Ebuyer, and Lee Strafford (managing director), who later went on to lead Plusnet through most of its development up to the sale to BT in January 2007. The first Force9 Internet products followed the dial-up internet model popularised by Demon Internet (monthly subscription, plus the cost of local phone calls), but offered at a lower cost to subscribers (£6 a month + VAT), and including more value-added features. By October 1997, Force9 had achieved the milestone of 5,000 subscribers, assisted by a marketing partnership with Yorkshire Cable (later to become part of Telewest), in which Yorkshire Cable customers were offered a reduced subscription on a Force9 account. In addition, software which used Force9 Internet as the default ISP was supplied with every modem ordered through Choice Peripherals. As the business grew, Force9 was split out as a separate operation from Choice Peripherals, with new premises and an umbrella company under which it would operate. This company, Plusnet Technologies Ltd, opened its doors at Internet House, Victoria Quays, Sheffield, in November 1997. Although the company was named Plusnet, the brand was first used for products by the business sales team at Force9, for leased line and server colocation services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In April 1998, Insight Enterprises, an American PC-peripherals company, made a move into the UK market by acquiring Choice Peripherals. However, Insight were principally interested in the online commerce side of the operation, and not in the ISP, Force9. Because of this, Insight largely left the ISP side of the business operating as it had been, with Lee Strafford remaining in charge of the operation. This coincided with the April 1999 launch of Force9's version of 'unmetered' dial up, which gave 0800 free call rate internet access during weekend hours. The website was re-branded as F9 in order to promote it. In June 2000, the Force9 brand was changed to Plusnet. This coincided with the introduction of the Surftime dial-up internet products, the first real 24/7 unmetered dial-up service in the UK. Plusnet continued to see month on month growth in the dial-up market, and this growth was further augmented with the launch of a 512 kbit/s ADSL broadband internet service in August 2000. Plusnet launched their first broadband products on the same day that BT made them available to the UK market. Plusnet continued to develop their product set over the next few years as new broadband speeds and technologies became available. The initial broadband product performed at a speed of 512 kbit/s, and required a BT engineer to visit the customer premises to install the service. As time went on, the maximum speeds increased. In January 2002, Plusnet launched a 'self Install' broadband product that the end user was able to set up themselves without the need for a visit to the premises by a BT engineer. In January 2004, the Force9 brand was still used by PlusNet Technologies Ltd. Plusnet Technologies Ltd. floated on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange as Plusnet PLC. In November 2004, Plusnet won best consumer ISP at the Future Publishing internet awards. In November 2005, Plusnet acquired Parbin Ltd and its consumer ISP MetroNet, which at that time provided a range of 'pay as you go' broadband packages. As part of the Parbin acquisition, Plusnet assumed ownership of several other brands: Pay as You Host, INUK and Port995. ===Acquisition by BT=== , Leeds On 16 November 2006, it was announced that BT were making an offer for all shares in Plusnet. The purchase, worth approximately £67 million, was declared unconditional on 24 January 2007 after Office of Fair Trading approval was granted. On 5 March 2007, shortly after the BT acquisition, the Plusnet chief executive, Lee Strafford, and the finance director, Neil Comer, were dismissed by BT. Strafford was replaced as CEO by a former BT employee, Neil Laycock, who had been with Plusnet in various senior roles for the preceding three years. BT bought the Brightview Group in July 2007, and Brightview's subsidiary Madasafish became a trading name of Plusnet. In November 2019, it was announced that some 1,600 employees¹ at Sheffield and Leeds would be transferred to BT in February 2020. At the same time, Andy Baker said he would step down as CEO of Plusnet, after six years in the role. ==Services== ==Marketing== In October 2010, Plusnet launched an advertising campaign designed to increase brand awareness nationally which emphasised the company's Yorkshire roots, using the strapline "Good Honest Broadband from Yorkshire". The strapline was replaced in April 2012 by "We'll do you proud", but the new campaign remained heavily influenced by Northern stereotypes. From 2013, the company became sponsors of the Yorkshire Marathon, run in York. The spokesman in the adverts was Craig Murray. ==Controversies== In February 2001, the company asked 1,100 dial-up customers to leave the service after they had stayed connected to an "unmetered" (but contended) dial-up service for long periods of time. On 9 July 2006, Plusnet lost 700 GB of customer email data due to human error. During a routine maintenance upgrade to the email system, an engineer mistakenly reformatted a live disk pack instead of the intended backup disk pack. Plusnet provided updates on their investigation but did not reveal the size or cause of the problem until 10 July 2006 at 15:39. Plusnet explained that the engineer responsible had accessed both the live and backup disk packs from a single workstation. The engineer believed his reconfiguration was to the backup storage when it was actually connected to the live email disk pack. In the following days, Plusnet did recover some email data and explained that other data may have been lost to corruption during the recovery. The official Plusnet UserGroup launched an "Email Stability & Resiliency Campaign" to attempt to ensure Plusnet made suitable investments and put in place measures to prevent future issues. In March 2017, it was fined £880,000 by Ofcom for continuing to bill customers for cancelled services. ==References== ==External links==

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