1983

Soft Solution founded by Shaun Fensom and Jeff Roberts.

1985

"The Poptel Report" defines the potential of online databases and electronic mail.

1986-1989

Poptel services start. Aiming to encourage organisations to take up electronic networks as organisational tools, Poptel provides a range of on-line services based on the GeoNet platform, including email, telex, bulletin boards and access to on-line databases. These services are used by by organisations in the International labour and NGO sectors for urgent action alerts, news and appeals.

During this time Poptel provides the ANC's first e-mail address.

During the Tiananmen Square protests the first eyewitness accounts are filed through the Asian Students Association and uploaded to the Internet via the Poptel network.

1990

Manchester HOST: In cooperation with the Economic Development Department of Manchester City Council Poptel sets up a project using online-technologies to support economic and community development. This is the first project of this kind in the UK.

1991

During the Gorbachev coup Poptel co-operates with other NGO- networks to exchange information received from trade unions and other players in the Soviet Union via the MOS1 Geonet system. The system only goes offline when its director sends a message saying that a tank had just arrived outside the office.

1992

Poptel is accredited by the UN to participate at the Earth Summit in Rio as one of only 3 networks.

Poptel works with the research department of CoHSE, later to become UNISON, to provide online pay bargaining info for their branches.

1993

Launch of Kirklees HOST, largely modelled on the Manchester HOST but withn a stronger emphasis on local businesses.

The Labour Party goes online with Poptel. Tony Blair is the 2nd MP to have an e-mail address GEO2:TONY.BLAIR (better known as tony.blair@geo2.poptel.org.uk)

Electronic mail and other services come to be thought of in terms of their accessibility from the Internet. For most Poptel clients, the Internet starts to play an important role.

1994

Poptel IP (Internet dial-up access) services launched.

1994

Labour Party Conference is on the Internet for the first time, hosted by Poptel - one of the first political parties in the world to get on the web.

Poptel links all the offices of the Citizen's Advice Bureau in Manchester.

1995

UNISON becomes the first labour union in the world to set up a website, hosted by Poptel.

1995-96

Teaching Union NASUWT is the first union in the world to link up all its branch offices with email, using Poptel's system.

1997

Poptel provides essential online communication services for Labour Party Headquarters at Millbank and information exchange for constituency activists during Labour's successful election campaign.

1998

Poptel provides Relate with Internet & Web Access for its regional offices.

1998

EU-funded IDEA-project goes live in Manchester. Poptel provides cost-efficient Internet-access to about 1500 small music, arts and media businesses. The project is accompanied by an innovative training programme.

Poptel starts operating UNISON's Free Internet Scheme for union-members.

1999

Poptel is amongst the UK´s Top 20 Internet companies in terms of financial performance.

Substantial investment by Sum International in Poptel. Poptel remains majority employee-owned and thus becomes the first co-operative in the UK to attract venture capital investment while at the same idea staying true to its founding principles.

2000

Poptel Professional Services design team created. The team designs the internet portal for co-operatives.net, the site of the Co-operative Union, re-works Poptel's own site and designs the promotional site for Divine Chocolate.

Poptel moves to bigger offices in London, from Dalston to Camden and expands into new offices in Manchester. A new Network Operations Centre (NOC) goes live in Manchester offering co-location services as a standard product for the first time.

Poptel attracts worldwide publicity by leading opposition from ISPs against the RIP bill.

Poptel submits 'Innovation in Co-operation' report to the UK Co-operative Commission.

Poptel submits applications for two new Top Level Domains to ICANN (.coop and .union). ICANN approves Poptel's application to create .coop as one of seven new Top Level Domains, beating competition from some of the world's largest companies.

2001

Poptel designs and builds UNISON's Trouble at Work site.

January Poptel launches 'Poptel Unlimited' offering based on BT Surftime.

January Poptel launches Policybrief (www.policybrief.org) the UK's new web based public policy resource.

March Poptel teams up with Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) to survey the online community’s attitude towards e-fundraising.

April Poptel supports Amnesty International's 'We Know Where You Live' website promoting their special Wembley concert.

April Baxi Trust invests £1.5M in Poptel from its fund dedicated to promoting employee-owned organisations.

April Poptel teams up with the Trade Union Council (TUC) to survey union members attitudes towards their unions websites.

June Poptel completes upgrade work on our Network Operations Centre to further improve services.

June Poptel launches Donate! (an online charity donations facility) in collaboration with leading UK charities.

July Poptel rated as 5th best ISP in UK in terms of availability and access/download speeds.

July UNISON's Trouble at Work website, designed by Poptel, wins 'Best Use of Electronic Communications' Award at the Trade Union Press and PR Awards.

2002

August

Poptel runs out of cash. Investor Baxi Partnerships declines to put more money in and Sum International takes control. Shaun Fensom resigns as Chair.

September

The staff from the web development department of Poptel form a new company called Poptel Technology Ltd, and employee-owned cooperative.

Poptel management makes extensive redundancies in Manchester and London.

2003

July

The "retail" ISP business of Poptel (internet access and web hosting services for individuals and organisations) is transferred to The Phone Co-op, an established consumer cooperative, together with five members of Poptel staff (including Poptel founder Shaun Fensom).

Quoting from Poptel's new management: "Focusing on core strengths and with over 15 years of ISP experience, Poptel Ltd provides wholesale Internet services, and management of the ".coop" Top Level Internet domain. Now a privately owned company, Poptel Ltd provides wholesale ISP and hosting services to Poptel Technology and The Phone Coop as well as other social economy organisations. Our Virtual ISP service offers flexible, scalable and cost effective solutions to organisations wishing to 'add value' for their members or supporters by offering a full range of Internet Services"

December

Poptel merges with Real Internet to form Real Poptel

2005

Oxford Swindon and Gloucester Cooperative Society buys the .coop registry and domains.coop regsitrar businesses from Real Poptel.

2006

Real Poptel sold to 186 and eventually liquidated

2007

Poptel Technology merges with Telecomplete to form Fused Group, a privately-owned company.