headquarters shetland isles manchester products internet services website http www.zetnet.com zetnet is one of the uk s oldest isps see list of uk isps by age and according to new scientist 1 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 . 2 3 contents 1 history 2 breathe migration 3 legal case 4 references 5 external links history edit 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 . 4 it was originally a wholly owned subsidiary sharing zetnet technical staff but was sold in may 2000 and incorporated as netgames uk ltd. 5 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 . 6 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 . 7 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 . 8 9 cloud nine were based in basingstoke run by ceo emeric miszti and operations director john parr . 10 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 . 11 in february 2005 zetnet closed its head office in the shetland isles . 12 13 according to the shetland news much of zetnet s operations were run from an office in manchester at the time . in november 2005 zetnet services ltd was put into administration 14 owing creditors a large sum of money and an administration committee was later formed by the creditors to investigate the finances of the company . citation needed the administrators sold the assets and good will of the company to zetnet limited which was formed 15 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 . 16 17 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 . 18 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 . 19 breathe migration edit 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 . 20 21 legal case edit in 1996 zetnet was caught in the middle of a legal case between two of its local customers the shetland times and the shetland news over copyright infringement . 22 the web sites of both customers were hosted by zetnet . references edit electronic crofting . new scientist magazine . 1995 08 26 . retrieved 2008 04 16 . smith marvin . fishing the net . . . shetland fishing news . archived from the original on 2000 02 26 . zetnet internet service . pc home . january 1997 . archived from the original on february 10 2005 . retrieved 2007 05 31 . zoominfo cached page netgames uk information . retrieved 2007 03 29 . netgames launches free unmetered internet trial for gamers . pr newswire europe ltd. 2000 12 01 . retrieved 2007 03 29 . netgames uk tech staff gone . 2001 08 24 . retrieved 2007 03 29 . 1 zetnet rescues cloud nine . the register . 2002 01 24 . archived from the original on 2000 02 26 . cloud nine sells up after dos attack . zdnet . 2002 01 24 . richardson tim 2002 01 22 . cloud nine blown away blames hack attack . the register . user robbie talk dunrossness kirk shetlopedia thoe shetland encyclopaedia that anyone can edit 21 43 september 20th 2007 mdt ; http shetlopedia.com talk dunrossness kirk bevington pete 2005 02 18 . zetnet closes shetland office . the shetland news . dead link stepintothepast . archived from the original on november 4 2005 . retrieved 2008 08 07 . companies house webcheck zetnet services limited . companies house . 2009 . retrieved 2015 02 27 . companies house webcheck . companies house website . companies house . 2009 . retrieved 2015 02 27 . solutrea ltd to purchase zetnet ltd press release . prweb . 2007 05 16 . retrieved 2008 08 07 . fifi 2007 06 07 . blog posting subject solutrea ltd to purchase zetnet ltd . archived from the original on july 16 2011 . retrieved 2008 08 07 . breathe networks acquires small uk isp zetnet press release . ispreview.co.uk . 2008 07 16 . retrieved 2008 09 05 . companies house webcheck zetnet limited . companies house . 2009 . retrieved 2015 02 27 . breathe apologises for e mail outage press release . ispreview.co.uk . 2007 04 19 . retrieved 2009 07 18 . e mail problems disrupt breathe s customers . . again press release . ispreview.co.uk . 2008 01 18 . retrieved 2009 07 18 . the shetland times v. the shetland news . external links edit zetnet ltd 2 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title zetnet & oldid 738561649 categories internet service providers of the united kingdomtelecommunications companies established in 1994hidden categories all articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from june 2016all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from february 2015 navigation menu personal tools not logged 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