PowerUp Internet

The evil overlords at Wikipedia bounced our PowerUp Page… will need to work on the references…..PowerUp was on the first ISPs in Queensland and become the largest, it is part of local Internet History.

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PowerUp Internet

Contents 1 History 2 PowerUp POPs 3 PowerUp Plans 4 PowerUp FTP File Robot 5 References 6 External links

History

PowerUp Internet was founded by Lloyd Ernst, Byron Newton and Joe Altoff in late 1987. Originally established as the ‘Electric Dreams BBS (Bulletin Board Service)’ it grew to become Queensland’s largest Internet Service Provider.^[1]

• In 1998 the founders sold 55% of the PowerUp to OzEmail for AUD $666,666.66.^[2]
• In 1999 with the imminent introduction of cable broadband into Australia and the increasing commoditisation of the Dial Up the internet service the founders decided not to expand PowerUp into a national ISP which would require investing in Dial Up POPs in various exchanges. Instead they focused on creating a national web hosting company called WebCentral.
• In 2000 the founders split the PowerUp ISP businesses and the WebCentral Web hosting business. They sold the remaining ISP customers to OzEmail and focusing on growing and expanding WebCentral.

WebCentral went on to become Australia’s largest hosting company. WebCentral commanded over 20% of the market. It was acquired by Melbourne IT in May 2006 for $61 million. WebCentral at that time had annual revenue of around $60 million and EBIT of $5.5 million.^[3]

The CEO and co-founder of PowerUp and WebCentral Lloyd Ernst is now co-Founder of CloudStaff an Asian based outsourcing company which focuses in providing services to Australia and UK businesses.

PowerUp POPs

Although it originated as a Brisbane based Internet Servive Provider, PowerUp expanded regionally to include Dial In POPs in Brisbane, GoldCoast and Sunshine Costs to maximise their reach in South East Queensland.^[4]

• Dial-In Modems 07 3249 4949 Brisbane Access
• Dial-In Modems 07 3249 3838 Unlimited Access Plan.
• Dial-In Modems 07 5475 2600 Sunshine Coast Access
• Dial-In Modems 07 5557 7600 Gold Coast Access

PowerUp Plans

PowerUp Offered 6 Dial Up Internet Plans – Which customers could choose to pay Monthly or Yearly. If users exceeded their allotted hours in a month they were billed at $1.80 per hour.

PowerUp Plans as of December 1999. (All Prices are in AUD)

Commoditisation drove PowerUp to eventually also offer an Unlimited Access Plan at $35/month The Unlimited Access Plan required the user to dial a dedicated Phone number.

PowerUp FTP File Robot

One of the innovative features of Powerup was the FTP File Robot. PowerUp users could use a web page to request a file from the world wide web and the file would be copied down to a local PowerUp server. In a time when Internet service provision was timed per hour and modem speeds were low, downloading direct from the ISP (rather than over the web) was seen as a huge differentiator. The PowerUp File Robot was widely adopted as a file fetch concierge service by its members.

References

 External links

• [www.abc.net.au/queensland/stories/s1449041.htm]
• [www.caslon.com.au/austelecomsprofile4.htm]
• [www.lloyde.com]

Category:Australian Information Technology