Demon Internet Ltd.

A company which provides public Internet access in the UK.

The staff of Demon Systems Ltd., an established software house, started Demon Internet on 1st June 1992 and it was the first system in the United Kingdom to offer low cost full Internet access. It was started with the support of about 100 founder members who discussed the idea on Compulink Information Exchange, and were brave enough to pay a year's subscription in advance. They aimed to have 200 members in the first year to cover costs, ignoring any time spent. After about two weeks they realised they needed nearer 400. By November 1993 they had over 2000 subscribers and by August 1994 they had about 11000 with 20% per month growth. All revenues have been reinvested in resources and expansion of service.

The service runs on Sun and Apricot Unix machines centred around the Network Operation Centre in Finchley, North London. Connected via Ethernet, as well as various routers, is the news server (news.demon.co.uk) which is a SPARC IPX (dis.demon.co.uk). A Sun SPARC 10, post.demon.co.uk handles electronic mail and nether.demon.co.uk, a SPARC, handles routing. ftp.demon.co.uk, another Sun is the FTP server.

A 256 Kbps line to Sprintlink network hub in the United States makes Demon a totally independent Internet service provider. They peer with EUNet and PIPEX to ensure good connectivity in Great Britain as well as having on order a 384 Kbps line to the JANET/JIPS UK academic network. A direct line into the Department of Computing, Imperial College, London from their Central London Point of Presence (PoP) (styx.demon.co.uk) gives access to the biggest FTP and Archie site in Europe.

Demon have over 100 dial-up lines operating in racks of U.S. Robotics V.32bis modems on all digital exchanges. In addition they have a number of dedicated phone lines for their network customers, private staff numbers etc. There are PoPs in Warrington, Edinburgh and many other places, bringing local call access to a large proportion of the UK. The central London PoP provides leased line connections at a cheaper rate for those customers in the central 0171 area. Further lines and PoPs are being added continuously.

Subscribers get allocated an Internet Address and you can choose your own hostname within the demon.co.uk domain, e.g. hostname yourmc.demon.co.uk. You can have any number of mail address at that host. You need software on your machine which can use Internet Protocol - either Serial Line Internet Protocol or Point-to-Point Protocol. Demon have free software for all types of computer.

Demon hosts:

 post.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.72             e-mail
  dis.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.69              FTP
  (a.k.a. ftp.demon.co.uk)
  newnews.demon.co.uk 158.152.254.254       news
  (a.k.a. news.demon.co.uk)
  nether.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.71           router
  disme.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.70            accounts
  dismayl.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.76          IRC etc.
  ns.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.193              a parallel port!
  gate.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.65             London
  styx.demon.co.uk 158.152.1.73             Central London
  hel.demon.co.uk 158.152.5.65              Warrington
  clootie.demon.co.uk 158.152.6.65          Edinburgh
  ragnarok.demon.co.uk 158.152.12.194       Reading
  thokk.demon.co.uk 158.152.7.194           Sunderland
  tyr.demon.co.uk 158.152.14.194            Yorkshire

E-mail: <internet@demon.net>.

FTP

MORE.

Usenet newsgroup: demon.announce.

Telephone: +44 (181) 349 0063.

Address: Demon Internet Ltd., 42 Hendon Lane, Finchley, London N3 1TT.

(08 Nov 1994)