Speakeasy, Inc. was a

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

and

voice over IP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

carrier based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, United States. Their terms of service described liberal usage policies for home users allowing subscribers to run any number of

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

s and allowing them to resell their connectivity to others through a service called "NetShare". They received press coverage for their support of

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

and BSD-derivative

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

s, and were reportedly the first provider to offer a customized version of Mozilla Firefox to customers, in January 2005. The company was acquired by MegaPath Corporation in 2010. MegaPath in turn was acquired by

Fusion Connect Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole. Fusion may also refer to: Science and technology Physics *Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nuc ...

, which retired the Speakeasy brand.

History

In 1994, Gretchen Apgar and husband

Mike Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and docume ...

opened a cybercafe in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood with Mike's brother

Tyler Tyler may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tyler (name), an English name; with lists of people with the surname or given name * Tyler, the Creator (born 1991), American rap artist and producer * John Tyler, 10th president of the United ...

. They started out with offering connectivity and email services in the area. Customers at the cafe expressed a wish to have the ability to check their email from other locations than just the cafe and a series of terminal stations were set up at various bars around town. These terminals were marketed under the label, "Rainmail." As computing power expanded and the cost of computers diminished, customers began to express the further wish to access their email from home. Speakeasy put together a bank of modems and offered a dial up service. As of 2008, dialup through Speakeasy is still available for $19 a month. The move toward DSL took place in 1998. In late 1999, the company expanded to a national level, offering

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

services throughout the United States. The Speakeasy backbone consisted of a dedicated fiber ring that circled the continental United States with major

points of presence A point of presence (PoP) is an artificial demarcation point or network interface point between communicating entities. A common example is an ISP point of presence, the local access point that allows users to connect to the Internet with their ...

(i.e. POPs) in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C., New York, and Chicago. From the POP to the customers premises a third party vendor was contracted to provide data layer connectivity. This is known in networking as the 'last mile'. In the case of Speakeasy, the data-link protocol used was

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...

rather than

PPPoE The Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It appeared in 1999, in the context of the boom of DSL as the solution for tunneling packet ...

Frame Relay Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Se ...

in case of T1's. In 2001, in the face of the collapse of many ISPs as a possible result of the dot-com bust, Speakeasy had marketed a program to allow for simple transfer of accounts, starting with the announcement of the failure of Flashcom, a former DSL internet provider. That same year, the cybercafe burned down in an electrical fire, forcing the company to focus on the internet business. In September 2003, Bruce Chatterley was made CEO of the company. In summer of 2004, the company announced simultaneously their entry into

VOIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...

, and their Onelink package, which allowed a DSL subscriber to maintain an ADSL line without the requirement of a telco line. In spring of 2006 Mike Apgar stepped down as chairman and moved on to a startup company Ookla that he created while at Speakeasy. On March 27, 2007 press releases by both companies announced the acquisition of Speakeasy by Best Buy, a Fortune 100 retail chain operating in the US, Canada and China. Best Buy planned to offer Speakeasy

and

services to small businesses through their Best Buy for Business unit. On June 10, 2010 Best Buy announced it was reducing its stake in Speakeasy, which would be merging with Covad Communications and MegaPath Corporation to form a new joint company. On September 1, 2010, MegaPath, Covad, and Speakeasy announced regulatory approval and the completion of their merger. The new combined company took the name MegaPath Corporation. On December 31, 2014, MegaPath Corporation sold certain of its network assets and direct internet access customers to GC Pivotal LLC dba

Global Capacity Global Capacity is a Waltham, Massachusetts-based provider of telecommunications Connectivity-as-a-Service including Carrier Ethernet, used by companies for Internet access and WAN connectivity. Network services are offered using the company's ...

, in order to raise cash to invest in its wholesale and managed services business. On May 10, 2018 ISP Fusion Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire MegaPath

References

External links

Official homepage
of Fusion Connect
Official homepage
of MegaPath Inc. {{DEFAULTSORT:Speakeasy (Isp) Internet service providers of the United States VoIP companies of the United States Companies based in Seattle Telecommunications companies established in 1996

History

See also

References

External links