LineOne chief quits to join startup

The chief executive of LineOne, Andy Harwood, announced today that he is leaving the service provider after only six months in the job to join e-marketing startup eVerger.

Harwood told vnunet.com he had left LineOne and that his move had nothing to do with the controversy surrounding the provider's withdrawal of an unmetered telecoms service, which he said had "no impact on my decision".

Moving to eVerger is a "really exciting opportunity to work for a global company with an entrepreneurial focus", he said.

Hardwood, a former head of finance at BBC Drama who worked on programmes ranging from EastEnders to Vanity Fair, will become the chief finance officer of eVerger, which provides early stage equity and management expertise to companies in the e-marketing sector. At eVerger Hardwood will work again with Andrew Burke, a founder of LineOne.

Last month the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) decided that LineOne did not act unreasonably when it withdrew its unmetered package earlier this year.

LineOne announced in July that it would end its unmetered service with telco Quip at the end of September. The ISP promised customers a £20 credit on their Quip telephone account and said they could keep the phone adapter purchased when they joined the service.

But the decision angered many customers, who felt they had wasted money buying the adapter. ISPA received a number of complaints and undertook an investigation, which ruled that LineOne did not breach the association's code of conduct.