Poptel was initially an email and bulletin board service, and later a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and on-line services provider that was run by an employee

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

(

worker cooperative A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and Workers' self-management, self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which ...

) from 1986 to 2002. In the 1980s Poptel offered on-line communications and information services to international

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

s, working in particular with the Interdoc group. Poptel was a partner in the

Manchester Host The Manchester Host was an early example of a municipal networking project. Its aim was to foster social and economic development in Manchester, England by encouraging the use of on-line communications and information services by businesses, public ...

and the Kirklees Host and became known as a provider of Internet services to the Labour Party. Working with the

National Cooperative Business Association The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) is a United States membership organization for cooperatives, which are businesses that are jointly owned and democratically controlled. The association was founded in 1916 as the Cooperative ...

of the US, it launched the successful bid to create a top level Internet domain for use exclusively by cooperatives - "

.coop .coop is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for the use of cooperatives, their wholly owned subsidiaries, and other organizations that exist to promote or support cooperatives. The TL ...

". Poptel was "demutualised" and broken up into smaller businesses in September 2002. Staff from the web development department formed a new co-operative, Poptech (later Fused Technologies). OSG Co-op (now

Midcounties Co-operative The Midcounties Co-operative, branded as Your Co-op, is a consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom with over 700,000 members. Registered in England under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, it is a member of Co-opera ...

) took over the .coop registry operation. The retail Internet Services business was merged with

The Phone Co-op The Phone Co-op was an independant consumer co-operative in the United Kingdom until 2018, when facing serious financial difficulties, it transfered itself into a sister society, where it remains today. It provides landline, mobile telephone a ...

in 2003. In 2012 the

registry was transferred to the

International Co-operative Alliance The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental co-operative federation or, more precisely, a co-operative union representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. It was founded in 1895 to unite, represent an ...

.ICA
2012, retrieved May 2016

History

Poptel was a trading name for Soft Solution Ltd, a worker co-operative founded in 1983. Poptel's first on-line service, based on the

GeoNet GeoNet was an early international on-line services network built using microcomputers. Based on software developed in Germany by GeoNet Systems GmbH in the early 1980s, and completed in the early 1990s, it was one of the first networks to offer a ...

platform, was launched in March 1986. The

was launched in 1991.

References

External links

Interdoc
the first international NGO computer network
.coop top level domain website
by journalist Andrew Bibby, c.2001

by Andrew Bibby, first published in the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

, 2003
Where are they Now List Of Ex Poptel Members
Former worker cooperatives Former internet service providers of the United Kingdom Defunct companies based in Manchester Former co-operatives of the United Kingdom {{telecom-company-stub