Crunch time for 'offline' ISP Ezesurf

Internet service provider (ISP) Ezesurf will reveal its fate on Saturday, after "technical problems" left thousands of customers unable to access its unmetered services.

Ezesurf's unmetered users, who purchased £75 worth of shares in the company as part of their sign-up agreement, have been unable to connect via the 0808 number since Wednesday, raising doubts over the ISP's future.

The company has since posted the following message on its website: "Ezesurf would like to apologise to its shareholders for the service being unavailable at this time. We are aiming to have the current situation rectified in due course. Ezesurf will be making an official statement within the next 48 hours, until then we will not be accepting any more registrations. Sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause."

It has been suggested that the company's problems stem from a failure to pay its telco provider, Energis. According to www.eezypeezy.net, a website created by "the staff of Ezesurf who remained after 08004U", the service has been cut off by Energis, six months and 14 days after the company originally paid "Energis six month's money up-front".

A spokeswoman for Energis confirmed that it has stopped providing Ezesurf's connectivity. "Ezesurf is an Energis customer. We provided it with web hosting and connectivity. As of midday 23 August we are no longer providing a [toll free] service to the company, but can not offer any more information."

A member of the customer services team at Ezesurf told vnunet.com on Friday morning that an announcement will be made on Saturday afternoon. He was unable to provide any further information, but denied the speculation among users that the company had gone into liquidation.

"The rumours that we have gone into receivership are not true. If there is a problem with Energis we will try and resolve it and we hope to have the services running again shortly," said the spokesman.

At the start of this month, vnunet.com reported that Scottish ISP Caledonian Internet had stopped reselling Ezesurf's Surfsaver package as it was unable to contact the company. It said Ezesurf failed to reply to letter, fax, email or telephone communications, and that it will no longer accept user sign-ups on Ezesurf's behalf.

AltaVista caused a storm at the start of this week with the announcement that it had put its unmetered internet service on hold. The US company came under fire for failing to plan its business model efficiently and then blaming BT for its downfall.

LibertySurf, another troubled ISP, has refused to comment on when it will reopen its unmetered service to new users after it suspended sales at the beginning of June. The company said its service is still running for existing customers, but that it has no plans to redistribute dial-up software in Comet and MVC stores.