Energis Communications Limited, briefly Telecom Electric, was a telecommunication company based in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The company was once a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is the United Kingdom's best-known stock market index of the 100 most highly capitalised blue chips listed on ...

, but subsequently went into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

, and then became a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless, in turn acquired by

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

History

The company was formed in July 1991, as Telecom Electric by way of a demerger from the

's National Grid Company. Its national optical fibre network was partially deployed via the overhead power transmission network of the grid. The company was first listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

, and the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

, in October 1997. Energis acquired a number of companies in the United Kingdom and Europe, including Planet Online, ISION AG and others. At one point its

Market capitalization Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...

was over £10 billion making it one of the largest companies by market capital. However, in the process the company over extended itself with borrowings to fund these acquisitions. Planet Online, by then a subsidiary of Energis, worked with its new parent to help Dixons launch the Freeserve ISP. Energis provided the telephony services and Planet Online provided the

e-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

Internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

etc. Following the 2001

telecoms crash The Telecoms crash, also known as the Telecommunications Bubble was a stock market crash that occurred in 2001, after the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The telecommunications industry had experienced significant growth and investment during the ...

, Energis plc was placed in

in July 2002, with its operations in the United Kingdom immediately being transferred to ''Energis Communications Ltd'', a wholly owned subsidiary of a new holding company owned by the banks, and known as ''Chelys''. Archie Norman was hired as chairman to revive the business. In November 2002 the Ision parts of the energis group were sold onto NDO with the remainder, mostly made up of Planet Online continued as ''Energis Communications Ltd'' until August 2005. Cable & Wireless then made an offer to acquire the company for £594 million. The bid was accepted by a binding majority of Energis debt holders, and the company became part of ''Cable & Wireless'' on 11 November 2005.

Operations

In its final form, Energis provided a number of services based around its core platforms of ISP, transmission, IP networking (Energis had a Nortel SDH network with Internet access provided via

Cisco routers Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, soft ...

using

MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a routing technique in telecommunications networks that directs data from one node to the next based on labels rather than network addresses. Whereas network addresses identify endpoints, the labels identi ...

technology), contact centre solutions and voice (traditional switched telephony). Energis provided services to a number of businesses, a few of the more interesting were: * Provided Fujitsu Services with a broad outsource for the Post Office Ltd branch and central network services. * Provided the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

with its distribution network for

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

and

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

programmes. * Provided service to support

The AA AA Limited, trading as The AA, is a British motoring association. Founded in 1905, it provides vehicle insurance, Driver's education, driving lessons, breakdown cover, loans, motoring advice, road maps and other services. The association Demut ...

and RAC helpline numbers. * Provided

Trinity Mirror Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national ''Daily Mirror'', '' ...

with an ATM based network for its editorial to printing process. * Provided network services to support the Wanadoo United Kingdom

Internet Service Provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

offering.

Senior management

Energis was led by a number of

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

s during its existence. * Mar 1993 – Dec 1995: David Dey * Dec 1995 – Aug 2001: Mike Grabiner * Aug 2001 – Jul 2002: David Wickham * Jul 2002 – November 2005: John Pluthero

References

External links

* {{Authority control Defunct telecommunications companies of the United Kingdom Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Companies based in Reading, Berkshire British companies established in 1991 British companies disestablished in 2005 Telecommunications companies established in 1991 Telecommunications companies disestablished in 2005 1991 establishments in England 2005 disestablishments in England