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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/15/v21_goes_byebye/

Netservices cuts off another ISP

By Chris Williams
Published Wednesday 15th November 2006 15:07 GMT

Updated Netservices has confirmed it cut off its wholesale broadband supply to V Two One and terminated the contract between the two firms.

Register sources tipped us off about the problems at V Two One late last week. On Monday, Netservices refused to confirm claims the firm was three months behind on payments.

V Two One was known as V21 prior to its acquisition (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/09/biscit_completes_v21/) by fellow middleweight ISP Biscit in a deal which went through in October.

In a statement (http://www.netservicesplc.com/pr_v_two_one.php), Netservices said: "NetServices has today terminated its contract with V Two One for the provision of wholesale DSL services. This is a decision which has not been taken lightly and, during the months since Biscit Internet Limited acquired V Two One, NetServices has sought to identify an acceptable basis under which the supply of services to V Two One might be maintained, but without success."

Calls to customer support are sent straight to answerphone, which then thanks the caller for leaving a message before they have had the chance to do so. The phones were ringing at Biscit today but no one was answering.

Once again, Leeds-based business ISP 186K has stepped in with a "rescue" package in the form of a "walled garden" from its consumer brand EzeeDSL, which was first deployed to mop up E7even customers (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/03/byebye_e7even/), and latterly in the Fast24 fiasco (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/09/fast24_cutoff/).

186K's info on the latest switchover is here (http://www.ezeedsl.co.uk/v21FAQS.htm). 186K boss Dominic Marrocco said: "The very nature of these circumstances means that there is no opportunity to prepare and distribute information in advance. This meant that there was no way to reach and warn so many users in so little time."

As per usual, Netservices says it cannot supply MACs for customers not wishing to join EzeeDSL. They'll have to wait until the final cut off on 24 November. The deal it has with 186K is a customer retention wheeze for Netservices; there's no regulatory or financial compulsion to hand MACs over at the moment. ®

Update

V21 has broken its silence by announcing it will seek 7-figure damages (http://www.biscit.net/biscit_mediacentre/v21_legal_proceedings.php) from Netservices over the dispute.

A statement gives V21's version of events :

Post acquisition [by Biscit], NetServices presented an invoice to V21 for "burst bandwidth charges" for services it claims it provided to V21's customers from as far back as December 2005. V21 rejected this invoice and launched a full audit into every invoice presented by NetServices to V21 since commercial relations were established in December 2005. The audit began last week.

Netservices was unavailable for comment at time of writing.

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