56European top ISPsWorld2000 Of Europe's 10 leading ISP leaders, 6 werelaunched by incumbent operators: DeutscheTelekom (T-Online), France Telecom (Wanadoo),Telecom Italia (Tin.it), Telefónica (Terra Networks),Belgacom (Skynet), KPN… The positioning of theirheadquarters enabled them to quickly attract alarge subscriber base. Overall, these ISPs primarilytarget residential customers, although operatorsoften market an offer for businesses as well. Thiscould be done under the same brand name (T-Online, for instance) or a different one (in France,for example, France Telecom's corporate servicesare marketed under the Oléane brand).As for the remainder of Europe's leading ISPs, theyhave been required to define a particular strategy inorder to distinguish themselves from the pack. Formost, this consisted in offering free access (Tiscaliin Italy, Freeserve in the United Kingdom beforebeing taken over by Wanadoo, Freenet inGermany). They were generally among the first tooffer this form of access in their country, at a timewhen Internet was beginning to gain in scope. A fewISPs have followed suit, such as Terra Networks inSpain and Tin.it en Italy (ClubNet offer). It is worthnoting that AOL/Compuserve holds a rather uniqueposition in Europe, as it is present in the threeleading markets (Germany, France and the UK) viaits American headquarters, which already enjoysthe position of the world's top ranked Internetaccess provider, even when taking into accountonly its US customer base.For some months now, most of these ISPs haveopted to go international, with the goal ofmaintaining their rank of leading player on the web.The European market still holds healthy prospectsfor development, which is reflected in theemergence of ISPs with pan-European ambitions(KPNQwest, UPC, GTS/Ebone), added to whichconfinement to one's domestic market would likelyimply losing one's place among the top 10European players. It is for this reason thatWanadoo chose to take control of ISP Freeserve,which dominates the British market, and that Tiscaliacquired the Dutch ISP WorldOnline, whichmarkets its Internet access services in severalcountries. Top 10 ISPs in Europe (mid 2000)Rank ISP Country(ies) of origin Switched accesssubscribers (millions)1 T-Online Germany 7.0 (1)2 Tiscali / World OnLine Italy, Netherlands 6.0 (2)3 Wanadoo / Freeserve France, UK 4.2 (3)4 AOL / CompuServe - 4.0 (4)5 Tin.it / ClubNet (Telecom Italia) Italy 3.4 (5,6)6 Infostrada/Libero/Italia OnLine (Enel) Italy 3.3 (6,7)7 KPN Netherlands 1.6 (8)8 Freenet (MobilCom) Germany 1.4 (9)9 Terra Networks Spain 1.2 (10)10 Belgacom / Infonie Belgium, France 1.1 (1)(1) Pay subscribers only.(2) Around 60% of free subscribers.(3) Of which 2 million free subscribers to Freeserve.(4) Majorily pay subscribers (only AOL UK has a base of freesubscribers).(5) Of which nearly 2.3 million free subscribers to ClubNet.(6) Same users can subscribe freely to Tin.it/ClubNet andInfostrada.(7) Of which more than 2 million free subscribers.(8) Majorily pay subscribers.(9) Free subscribers only.(10) Of which nearly 0.9 million free subscribers.© IDATE www.idate.fr
European top ISPs57World2000 Top 10 ISPs in Europe (mid-2000)23KPNTiscali/WorldOnLine 8Wanadoo/Freeserve 10Freenet7Belgacom/Infonie51T-OnlineTin.it/ClubNet 69Terra NetworksInfostrada/Libero/Italia OnLinemillion subscribers864420AOL/CompuServe© IDATE www.idate.fr
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