Penguin

One of the original Hamilton based ISPs, if not the first.

Originally started by BryceFarmilo and SimonLyall in mid 1993 in conjunction with ICONZ

First (afaik) ISP in Hamilton to use a radio link for its main feed (1.6Mbps Lucent Wavelan link into WaikatoUniversity and onto the NZIX)

Closed down in (can any one remember?) when customer base was sold off to Jets Internet.

LindsayDruett says, "Remember ?, How could I forget when all this happened ?..."

This would have happened last quarter 1997, when everything else happened...
I still can't figure out why it never hit the front page of the Waikato Times...

BryceFarmilo says this was definitely the first public access Internet company in Hamilton and probably the third or fourth in NZ (arguably). We got help from StatusBBS (soon to be come ICONZ), specifically JonClark? and CraigWhitmore? (aka Lennon) to set up a wonderful little 386BSD server that formed the core. Using a 2 wire analogue lease line to Waikato Uni and a pair of ZyXEL modems running at 9600 baud (oh the speed). The business was originally Midland Internet Services and was a partnership between myself SimonLyall and my father.

We were originally in the back of the Exscite exhibition centre in Collingwood street (Collingwood court mall as it was then). Many a late night was spent working away in the non-airconditioned room.

MichaelPook was involved with Midland along with Simon and myself before the offical partnership was formed in a loose casual arrangement. I worked full time on the ISP, Mike did some programing work and Simon enjoyed trawling USENET and allowing me to spend his money. Mike decided to go his own way and we bought in my father and formalised the partnership and the rest as they say is history (and a story for another day).