A unique Internet Service Provider (ISP) has been operating from Lerwick in the Shetland Islands since October 1994. Zetnet Services Ltd now has several thousand customers all over the UK and is growing by leaps and bounds. Chance meetings in 1994 between various Bulletin Board System (BBS) enthusiasts including a photographer, a business man with an interest in computers and two programmers formed the basis of what has become a popular and successful ISP. Local photographer Graeme Storey of Force 10 Photos and local business man and computer enthusiast Ghufar Razaq conceived the idea of setting up a BBS for residents of Shetland.

Ghufar (aged 29) has lived in Shetland since he was three and followed his father's footsteps in the family's retail business. "I have been interested in computers for as long as I can remember and I wanted to help expand the family business by introducing new technology. I developed some software for keeping the accounts, ordering and stock control and also had a side-line business building PCs. In the early 90s I got involved in the growing interest in Bulletin Boards and the Internet. Graeme and I thought it would be a good idea to set up a Shetland-based BBS."

Enter Tim Cole (aged 44), an ex-RAF aircraft communications fitter, ideas began to flow and a new company was born.

I asked Tim Cole how he came to be involved. "My career in the RAF came to an abrupt end when I fell off the back of a lorry, and as a result of the injury I sustained I was medically discharged. But this resulted in a place at Southampton University and a BSc in Electronics. This in turn led to various programming jobs with the Central Electricity Generating Board and Lee-Dickens Telematic Systems but I had a couple of heart attacks in early 1994. Whilst I was convalescing, Graeme, with whom I'd corresponded on a Bulletin Board, asked me to come to Shetland to meet him and Ghufar. I called up Paul Martin, a programmer friend, and we came to Shetland and wrote the Zetnet Information Management and Control System (ZIMACS) software and the Zetnet System software."

Ghufar recalled those early days: " I don't think Graeme or I really understood what the Internet was about nor did we know where it might lead but we agreed that we wanted to be part of it."

Zetnet was born on 13th October 1994 with 20 lines connected to 14K4 modems, PC servers built by Ghufar and a 64k line to Pipex. Connection was made via a 0800 number and a modest income was derived from on-line charges. I well remember the 16th November 1994 when Tim put out a message to the small but growing band of local subscribers saying: "The Internet button now works!" A SLIP connection was now available through the ZIMACS software and many Shetlanders had their first experience of the Internet.

Over the next few months Zetnet grew steadily and started to attract customers from the UK mainland. Graeme left the company in February 1995 to concentrate on Force 10 Photos and develop his growing interest in HTML authoring and Internet publishing. It soon became apparent that the 64k line would not be sufficient for much longer and that 512k was needed for further expansion. The problem was that the cost of a 512k line in Shetland was likely to be almost 10 times greater than in mainland UK. The directors decided to set up an office in Manchester and this was achieved in the summer of 1995. In the meantime Dave Gorski, another friend of Tim's with expertise in communications, became involved in Zetnet and he took over management of the Manchester office. The system was upgraded, extra lines were added connected to new 28K8 modems and access was via the new 512k line and SMDS server. The Lerwick Point of Presence (PoP) remains available for Shetland customers, system development and testing and the Lerwick office is still Zetnet's headquarters.

A major breakthrough occurred in February 1996 with the introduction of the 0345 LoCall service for Zetnet's rapidly increasing number of customers; more lines were added at the same time. In September a fibre-optic link giving a 2mB SMDS connection and yet more lines were installed in the Manchester office. Tim said: "The growth rate started to increase exponentially but without the commitment and investment of BT our ability to expand would have been very limited - mind you, they've needed prodding sometimes!"

Planned developments over the next few months include expanding the Lerwick PoP so that all the Shetland customers can connect locally, giving all the Manchester customers their own local PoP and setting up local servers in London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Bradford. The 0345 LoCall service will continue to be available for all other customers. A new Technical Support service is being established in Lerwick at the time of going to press and more lines will be installed at Manchester and Lerwick to accommodate new customers. But the development which brings a twinkle to Tim's eyes is the launch of Point to Point Protocol (PPP), planned for 16th November 1996, exactly 2 years after the first Internet connection became available via SLIP.

ZIMACS is a complete package offering e-mail and newsgroup access as well as Internet connections all from a very user-friendly front end. In addition, Dial-up Networking scripts are available for Windows 95, Mac, Acorn, Amiga and Atari. Zetnet offers technical support for Windows users and limited support for Mac users. Customer-based support is available for those using other systems. Another distinguishing feature of the Zetnet service is that access to newsgroups is available from 2 separate servers: one server provides a list of newsgroups which are deemed suitable for persons under the age of 18; those wanting the more adult newsgroups have to request access to the other server for the complete list. This makes the service ideal for responsible parents and has also resulted in all the schools in Shetland and some in mainland UK choosing Zetnet as their ISP. A similar feature will be applied to WWW access in the very near future. Tim said: "We've had this policy since the beginning - it protects children and respects adults."

Summing up the success of Zetnet Ghufar said: "We have made steady progress over the last two years and are still growing at a rate that we can sustain. We don't have to spend much on advertising Zetnet as most of our new customers join as a result of the recommendation of existing customers. I think this is mainly because we have a sound, proven product which is constantly being developed and improved, but it's also a tribute to the hard work of our seventeen staff their commitment to providing a friendly service to our customers."

webweaver 15th. December 1996