In 1997 another Internet startup was founded by Kevin Savage, Jason Smith and John Sewell named Phase8.com "Webcall.com Limited" based in Worcester.

Despite acquiring smaller web hosting companies and resellers along the way, including SmartChoiceNet, the "publicly quoted" Namesco struggled to be viable citing the increasingly competitive nature of the domain name and web hosting business, and the additional costs of maintaining listed status as the reasons for a lack of profitability.

In 2002, it was rumoured that Ian Gowrie-Smith, Australian chairman of drug company SkyePharma was planning a reverse takeover of Namesco with the assistance of its chief executive and finance director, David Lees.

[9] As NDO also sold domain names, web hosting and dialup internet access, this acquisition allowed Namesco to offer its customers ADSL services.

This is also the year LCN was acquired by Namesco Limited cementing the company as the third largest domain and hosting provider behind GoDaddy and 1&1 Ionos.

Namesco notified the Information Commissioners Office about this loss, and customers were advised to update their passwords and cancel their card details.