Free ISP races towards the million mark

NEWS Free Internet service provider (ISP), Freeserve is claiming to have signed its 900,000th member - making it the largest ISP in the UK. Freeserve, which launched last September, is a joint venture between retail group, Dixons and business telco, Energis. Over 700,000 of the accounts have been used during the last month, giving Freeserve a clear lead over its closest rival, AOL with 500,000 members. Benjamin Ensor, analyst at Fletcher Research, said: "Sixty per cent of Freeserve members are already Internet users, either switching over from another ISP or setting up a second account. It is not surprising that people are trying it out: the question is whether Freeserve can sustain it." Ensor believes Freeserve's 40 per cent quota of first-time users is an encouraging sign for the UK Net market. "Freeserve has made a tremendous contribution to Internet penetration in the UK," he said. But he added: "It is important to differentiate between Internet access providers and content providers such as AOL and CompuServe - this is very serious competition to companies like Demon Internet and EasyNet." Dixons said it intends to expand its retail outlets and increase the number of engineering support staff it has during 1999 - roughly 2,000 jobs will be created as a result. Dixons' interim report, released today, also claims its sales over Christmas were up 3 per cent, largely driven by demand for personal computers.