Before LineOne was launched in 1997 as a joint venture between News International and British Telecom, it was known as Springboard Internet Services and previously to that Delphi.

Freeserve launched in 1998, and was the first major ISP to offer a subscription free dialup service that only charged the standard per minute local call rate for access.

Chowdhury left in 2000 to set up NBC Internet Europe and Mary Turner was appointed the General Manager of LineOne.

[2] It was rumoured that before this sale, another large telecommunications giant had offered three to four times as much a year earlier and that by holding out for more money, the LineOne management missed the boat.

In June 2009, The UK operations of Tiscali were sold to TalkTalk Group, part of The Carphone Warehouse plc.