On BBC 1′s Watchdog programme on the 21st March, the results of a survey of Watchdog viewers rating their broadband providers were published. It was interesting to see that an ISP called Biscit ( new home page or old home page) came bottom in terms of satisfaction rating which was accompanied by the comment that they were no longer around.
I remembered seeing several postings about Biscit and I thought it would be interesting to look back at its story and what a story it turned out to be! I would advise getting a cup of coffee before delving into this Alice in Wonderland world of a UK ISP called Biscit who bought another ISP called V21 in October 2006.
Biscit’s last Management team consisted of Tony Caplin-NXD, Hugh Paterson-CEO, Nathan Relevy-Co-Founder & COO (Nathan was CEO until the arrival of HP and according to a rather forlorn LinkedIn profile was at some time a Technical Solutions Consultant at Biscit. Photo on right) and Bill Holman-Russell-FD.
The saga begins…
May 2006: Here is a video from one of the V21 founders, Kevin Baigent talking about V21 before the aquisition.
17th July 2006: Biscit appoints Paterson CEO The UK-based telecoms and broadband provider Biscit has announces the appointment of Hugh Paterson as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect. Paterson has been a business and communications adviser to blue-chip technology companies and Internet start-ups for over ten years. His career also includes leadership positions in international trade and with a 33 subsidiary listed group. Paterson joined Biscit’s board earlier this year as a non-executive director with responsibility for marketing.
August 11th 2006: V21 takes the Biscit “ISP V21 and Biscit are to merge in a plan to take on the big boys for a slice of the converged broadband and VoIP market. The deal should go through in 60 days. Biscit hopes to flog its FreeMax combined voice call and broadband internet package to V21′s 43,000 punters. Biscit, a BT ADSL reseller, has 6,000 customers.”
27th September: Biscit Withdraws Its Offer to Acquire V21 “A revised offer was made to V21 following receipt of the Financial Due Diligence Report on the affairs of V21 from Biscit’s accountants. The offer has since expired.” According to ISPreview, V21 responded with a further press release entitled: V21 Decline Biscit’s Ridiculous Claims “On 27th September V21.co.uk Ltd declined the offer from Biscit on the basis that it was not in the best interests of its shareholders, customers or indeed staff. The offer as published by Biscit’s own press office in August was to merge the two companies to make a better larger more profitable business. Over the last few days it has become very apparent that this was not the case and the board of directors of V21.co.uk Ltd voted against any such action.” ISPreview comment: “Judging by the title of v21′s response we’d say that there is a fair bit of bad blood between the two ISP’s, although any specifics remain unclear and will probably remain so.”
9th October 2006: Biscit completes V21 swallow Biscit CEO Hugh Paterson said: “The principal changes V21 customers will experience is greater choice in voice and superfast broadband services, and quality customer support from Biscit’s in-house London teams instead of a call centre in India.” According to ISP Review: “The board of V21 has stepped down and been replaced by Biscit’s CEO, Hugh Paterson, its sales and product development director, Nathan Relevy, and its financial director and company secretary, Bill Homan-Russell. V21′s auditors and legal advisers have also been replaced by Biscit’s.”
15th November: Netservices cuts off another ISP “V21 calls in the lawyers. 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 by fellow middleweight ISP Biscit in a deal which went through in October.”
15th November – The first ISP comes to the rescue!: 186k STEPS IN TO RESCUE USERS AT BISCIT “In a last minute rescue bid, 186k the fast growing business ISP has stepped forward to save the connections of many thousands of broadband users, following the demise of the services delivered by their troubled broadband provider Biscit CSP Limited (Biscit CSP, formerly called v21.co.uk Limited and trading as V Two One). The rescue means that Biscit CSP Limited customers can be provided with an alternative solution, with minimal disruption to their services through ezeeDSL“. The ezeeDSL page for Biscit customers.
November 15th, according to their web site, Biscut says: “Armed with a MAC code, V21 customer ID and telephone number for the broadband service, users can log on to www.v21.co.uk/migration to be reconnected to its superfast broadband services and receive 1 months free broadband compensation. They will then be able to continue using their current email and hosting services without changing any settings whatsoever. Expected downtime to reconnection is 24-96 hours.” This page has now been taken down.
November 23rd 2006: NetServices reconnects V21 punters for free “Broadband wholesaler NetServices has agreed to provide a connection free of charge to former customers of V21, the retail ISP it cut-off as part of a financial dispute. NetServices will bear the cost of connections until Friday, when a “bulk cease” will be requested to unplug V21 users from its network. Once BT applies the cease they will be able to sign up to a new provider”.
24th November 2006: Biscit / V21′s wholesale network provider has its own troubles it seems: “NetServices lose out though sales soar TELECOMS Salford-based internet business NetServices has shed a quarter of its workforce since June in a restructuring programme, following a torrid period since the firm floated.”
November 29th 2006: A letter from Hugh Patterson – CEO of Biscit Dear V21 Customers, As you know, our first month together has been somewhat chequered. Certainly, we’ve upgraded the quality of the V21 network with new hardware and transferred some customers over to Biscit servers and we believe those that have been switched over will soon begin to see the benefit of Biscit’s superior services. On the negative side, we could have done better in closing down frontline support from India and replacing it with more customer support from our London-based operations. We’ve tripled our customer support capability since Monday this week and I’m confident that we’re well on the way to winning that one. Many skeletons have crawled out of the V21 cupboards since Biscit acquired V21 in early October. One is a bug in the billing software, now sorted. However, the biggest skeleton however is our now well-documented commercial dispute with NetServices. The dispute is not of our making and is due to an invoice for burst bandwidth charges received in October, which we rejected. Ask yourself the question – how can you possibly invoice for something you don’t have the equipment to measure? We subsequently launched a full audit of NetServices’ invoices since last December.
Make no bones about it, NetServices unwarranted actions against V21 are driven by protectionist measures. V21 was its largest customer and Biscit is a core broadband provider of BT Wholesale.
Will Ezeedsl be V21’s successor in becoming NetServices biggest customer? If you sign-up to Ezeedsl, you’ll could be helping NetServices achieve its protectionist goals.
We note that the Manchester Evening News is soliciting comment on its recent story about NetServices £3million loss in its maiden trading year on the London Stock Market, AIM. If you’d like more information about Ezeedsl, please visit – http://www.186k.co.uk/company/readaboutus.html. Do you agree with Ofcom about an emerging pattern? Sincerely, Hugh Paterson
4th December 2006: Internet supplier denies customer-retention ploy “The chief executive of internet provider Biscit/V21 has accused former supplier NetServices of cutting off V21′s service in a bid to hang on to its dwindling customer base. In mid-November, V21′s customers found that they had been disconnected from their ISP and routed through to a page which urged them to sign up with another customer of NetServices, EzeeDSL.”
December 9th 2006: The NetServices/Biscit Saga Takes New Twist “Those hoping to have heard the last of that disgraceful dispute between NetServices (NS) and Biscit (V21) will be frustrated by today’s news. Users that had effectively been forced to move onto the NS based ISP EzeeDSL may now be forced back to V21!”
January 14th: As posted on My V21/Biscit Blog, Hugh Patterson was interviewed on the BBC’s Radio 4 You and Yours programme. Here is the streamed interview – no problems in Biscit according to Hugh! – “Coming to end of the problem we can safely say we are ahead of the curve.” Listen to the interview.
December 15th 2006: NetServices Biscit Statement “NetServices has read the various statements released by Hugh Paterson, CEO of Biscit, the Biscit website, its bulletin Board, ZDnet and others including ISP Review and the Register. NetServices is concerned that the headlines, certain content, and in particular comments attributed to Mr Paterson may be misleading.”
Feb 1st: Biscit denies cash flow problems The chief executive of internet provider Biscit has denied reports that his company is running low on cash. Responding to a piece on website ISP Review, entitled Biscit facing financial difficulty? — Cheques bounce, Hugh Paterson said the story was “overblown” and “no mystery”.
16th Feb: Amazingly enough in The UK Internet Industry Awards Biscut were listed as a runner-up as the best ISP, best Consumer Email and the best Business Email in the UK. Biscit won the 2006 award!
This only shows that industry awards in this sector do not seem to be that relevant or credible.
22nd February: Biscit says no trouble at the mill “Internet Service Provider Biscit has insisted it is “business as usual” after its chief executive left the board. The firm has also denied speculation that it has been undergoing financial problems after refund cheques to customers bounced. The firm also laid off some staff in January.”
The company today announced the departure of its executive director, Hugh Paterson, and said: “Biscit today advises that Hugh Paterson has resigned as an executive director of Biscit and its internet businesses and has accepted a new mandate from the new shareholders to develop Biscit’s forward roadmap.” Paterson told the Reg: “I’ve resigned so I can concentrate on future developments. But the rest of this is overblown. The bounced cheques were just an administrative error – we closed an account but everyone has now been refunded. There are no financial problems and our rent is up to date. We have a good core of staff although there were some redundancies earlier in the year.”
Feb 26th: Confusion as Biscit withdraws from ISP Association UK internet service provider Biscit has withdrawn from the Internet Service Providers’ Association and is not taking on any new customers. According to an Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) spokesperson, Biscit “resigned [its] membership” last Tuesday (20 February) for no stated reason. The spokesperson pointed out that this meant Biscit’s customers are no longer covered by the industry code of practice or complaints procedures. It also means that Biscit no longer has free membership of CISAS, which disgruntled customers can call upon if they have a dispute with a company that is a member of CISAS.
March 1st: Supplier Problems Knock Biscit Customers Offline Several broadband customers of troubled UK ISP Biscit have reported being unable to connect since yesterday morning. The problem follows a similar outage two weeks ago, yet ominously this one appears to be an unspecified issue with the provider’s suppliers: NetServices.
8th March: Biscit goes titsup “Company insolvency specialist Piper Thompson has confirmed it is handling the administration of broadband provider Biscit. The London-based ISP has been busy denying speculation it is having financial problems after refund cheques to customers bounced, and staff were laid off in January.”
March 9, 2007 – The second ISP comes to the rescue!: Supanet Offers Lifeline to Biscit Customers Internet provider Biscit has entered into administration and Supanet is offering customers the chance to switch to Supanet at a newly reduced rate. One of the discounted offers enables customers to enjoy Supanet’s unlimited broadband service, free webmail and free landline phone calls. David Hankinson, Sales Manager for Supanet, said: “For people who are having trouble with their ISP then this offer could provide an ideal time to change broadband provider. For £13.99 customers will receive our unlimited broadband connection and for just £1 a month extra we’ll throw in free phone calls as well.”
9th March: Note: I understand that V21 had a good reputation before it was acquired and it is rumoured but not confirmed that the three V21 directors do not receive any money for the acquisition for some reason. According to this – Biscit had a visit from the bailiffs today… – on ISPChatZone, the acquisition called for V21 to be be paid in monthly instalments. This is particularly dangerous type of payment schedule to agree to in a trade sale as an unethical acquirer can quite easily claim that they discovered undisclosed issues that did not come to light in due diligence and decline to meet their obligations. Maybe this is what happened in V21′s case?
14th March – The 3rd ISP comes to the rescue!: Breathe Biscit Buy Battered “Breathe Networks Limited said a deal it reached to buy fallen ISP Biscit’s customers has been aborted because of a legal battle over who actually owns the customers – a situation that’s left subscribers high and dry and that has called into question the U.K.’s existing rules over end users’ rights to switch ISPs.”
19th March – The 4th ISP comes to the rescue!: On the Biscit home page is now: “O-bit Telecom are offering their services to all Biscit’s customers who have been affected by the termination of Biscit’s services. The O-bit infrastructure is supremely robust and is backed by rock solid telecoms’ systems and a highly respected business foundation. We will do everything we can to help. “
19th March: BT offers MAC lifeline for Biscit customers BT Wholesale has come to the rescue of stranded Biscit users by setting up a hotline to issue the MAC codes necessary for them to quickly move to another ISP. “IT PRO’s sister title PC Pro was told that, while BT Wholesale had gone beyond the call of duty in this particular instance, it was not committed to providing such a service in the future, despite smaller providers being under increased pressure.” Note: BT Wholesale was Biscit’s network wholesaler while NetServices was V21′s wholesale supplier. One of the biggest issues that Biscit’s customers had was obtaining V21 MAC codes (from NetServices?) to enable them to transfer to another ISP, so it makes total sense from a PR perspective for BT Wholesale to make them available. Even though they say they would not do it again, we’ll see what happens in future similar circumstances of one of their customers going into liquidation.
From the V21 site: “we are now able to offer new customers to V21 a choice of competitive, quality connection packages. Please note that prior to the 21st March, customers of V21 are actually customers of Biscit Internet and are not affiliated with our services – we are of course happy to accept existing V21 customers back, if you wish to subscribe to our service!” V21 is now based in Alexander Road in Farnborough, Hampshire.
March 23rd: Ex-Bosses Resurrect V Two One (V21) “Two of V21′s former bosses prior to the ISP’s traumatic acquisition by Biscit, Kevin Baigent and Steve Deacon, have stepped in to resuscitate the brand back to life. But can it ever fully recover?: Kevin Baigent, co founder of the original V Two One commented “This has had a terrible effect on the original name of V Two One, and we feel it is unjustified. During the time of the takeover, the domain name http://www.v21.co.uk has always remained in the ownership of Steve Deacon. We have since decided to launch a new ISP using this well renowned domain name.” Kevin continued “I would hopefully like to help put users of the original service at ease by confirming that we hold no details of any of the previous customers of V Two One. There will be no billing requests or other spurious demands. This is a new project and is not part of any take over or selling of customer databases or assets.” Note: This is quite strange as the web site has a “Returning customer? Access your members area here!” link on the home page and the November 15th Biscit PR release saying come to the V21 page to reconnected – since taken down.
So it looks like the story has come full circle with V21 resurrecting themselves. However, it has to be seen whether customers will go back to them after the sorry story that has taken place over the last few months.
After reading the above posts and others, it’s hard to get to grips with gaining a real understanding of what happened. The fact is that in less than six months following the ‘acquisition’ everything crumbled. As usual it’s the customers that have got hurt thus driving them to the big names in the industry. Maybe this is no bad thing.
thanks for your story it’s interesting to see other peoples perspectives on the whole story. It has been nothing short of a nightmare, we sold a thriving successful company to people we thought were honest. It is with great regret that it seems that some parties to this deal were far from it, we recieved no payments for the company at all. In fact all we have been left with is liabilities because of the lies we were told. If you would like the details by all means contact me.
BTW the “returning customers” link is to the customer members area where customers who have signed up with us can return. With regards old customers signing up with us, we have already had a number of these. The reasoin for this is simple; prior to the Biscit fiasco we had a very happy and loyal customer base.