Freeserve was a British Internet service provider, which was founded in 1998. At its height, the company became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, before merging into the Wanadoo group in 2000. It then became a subsidiary of France Telecom, who owned a controlling interest in Wanadoo. Wanadoo rebranded over time and eventually became Orange Home UK. Since the merger of Orange UK into EE, Orange Home UK was integrated as a service within EE's range of services. History The company was founded in 1998 as a project between Dixons Group plc and Leeds-based hosting provider Planet Online to provide free Internet access to customers buying new home PCs from Dixons stores. The concept was the brainchild of Ajaz Ahmed who was an employee at Dixons at the time. He grew frustrated of not being able to get online without technical knowhow and so sought about a better way for PC owners to get online. Initially the concept was called Channel 6 and was between Packard Bell and Planet Online. Packard Bell pulled out and Dixons (who resold their PCs) stepped in as joint partner. Freeserve was one of the first of the UK's ISPs to dispense with the usual monthly subscription fee for Internet access, and instead to collect a proportion of the standard telephone line charges. This made it more appealing and affordable to the masses and paved way for more people gaining internet access in the UK. (At the time virtually all Internet access in the UK was by dial-up access via BT lines.) With Freeserve however each customer had 10 megabytes of webspace, and could split the email address into as many names as desired, using a simple extension of the normal email naming protocols (user@freeserve.co.uk could subdivide into email for dad@user.freeserve.co.uk and mum@user.freeserve.co.uk etc.). At the time, not having a standing charge for such a comprehensive service, especially the webspace, was a radical step. Further revenue was obtained from advertisements on Freeserve's homepage, which was set as the default page in the customers' web browsers upon installing the Freeserve connection software. BT sought to challenge Freeserve's business plan by arguing that under the regulatory model (known as Number Translation Services, or NTS), it should receive more money for each call, and in January 1999 Oftel announced that it would carry out a review. Freeserve floated on the stock market in July 1999 (as Freeserve.com