Affinity Internet Holdings Plc, the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM) listed internet service provider, has won a deal to be the virtual ISP for SegaSoft Networks Inc’s Heat.net games site in Europe. The deal came the same day that Affinity announced subscriber figures of 500,000, making it the second largest ISP in the UK.
The exclusive SegaSoft deal will see Affinity’s newly-created subsidiary EGO Maniacs.net Ltd market a Heat.net-branded ISP in 10 European centers before the end of the year, as well as giving its existing virtual ISP clients the opportunity to include Heat.net as a channel on their portals. Under the terms of the deal, Affinity receives interconnection revenues from users dialing into the service, as well as taking advantage of advertising and merchandising opportunities. The firm has already begun negotiating with local telcos in eight European countries to offer dialup at local rates.
Although the firm currently operates in only three of its target countries, Affinity CEO Wayne Lochner told ComputerWire that he was confident roll-out could be completed by February 2000. The firm can set up new points of presence in other countries using a shrinkwrap approach, based on ICL Plc server infrastructure, Cisco Systems Inc comms kit and outsourced customer support services from ClientLogic Corp, he said.
Heat.net currently operates in the US and Canada, and has, according to SegaSoft, 500,000 regular users that spend an average of 68 minutes online per gaming session. The service offers 22 online multi-player Sega games, as well as boxed games for sale. SegaSoft is part-owned by Sega Enterprises Ltd.
London-based Affinity’s share price closed up 8.9% yesterday, having peaked 22% above the opening price at lunch time. Affinity now has 500,000 subscribers to its services, spread over 70 branded virtual ISPs. This is still well short of UK number one Freeserve Plc, which has its service provided by telco Energis Plc, with 1.3 million, but some reports suggest America Online Inc’s UK arm has seen its subs tumble in the last six months, down from 600,000 to 400,000.
This would make Affinity the UK’s number two ISP, but it has kept a low profile since listing on AIM in April. Lochner said: we played the ‘net stock game’ different to other companies. We made the company work before we started talking it up.
