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Broadband leads to end of Transend

One of the first private companies to offer Internet services in Taiwan closed its doors yesterday due to the slowing economy and lack of demand for its services.

"Dial up connectivity is dead," said Carl Nicolai, founder and president of Transend Inc. "Anyone who wants the Internet now wants it fast and wants it nice, and they want huge e-mail boxes."

That's why people are switching to high-speed broadband connections.

Of the 7.21 million Net surfers in Taiwan today, 600,000 already pay a premium for broadband access, and Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry (資策會) says high demand for faster connections should put that number at 1 million by the end of the year. The institute, in fact, opened the first Internet provider in Taiwan, government-run Seednet.

Transend was the last small, legal Internet provider in Taiwan. The remaining industry players are all big companies, including state-run HiNet, Seednet, GigaMedia Ltd (和信超媒體) and the three new fixed line telecoms.

Transend opened for business in 1994, before pictures and graphics could be used on the Web. Users had to remember or write down lengthy Internet addresses in order to find information and Nicolai said most people used his services for messaging and discussion groups. Downloading pictures, mostly porn, was also popular.

"He was a full fledged [Internet service provider], and with the language barrier at Seednet, for the foreign community he was it," said Russ McClay, a Web page specialist at Pro QC Studios.

From those humble beginnings the business grew -- slowly.

In his first month of business, Nicolai signed up just one customer. Five more hooked on in the second month, then 20 in the third, all Americans.

"Nobody knew what the Internet was when we started. I was on street corners handing out brochures," Nicolai said, who has been on the Internet and its predecessor for 18 years. He also offered training courses every Saturday in a classroom at Transend's office.

The dotcom rise brought even more interest to Nicolai's door. One investor offered to pay NT$5 million for the company's Web address, transend.com, but Nicolai declined, refusing to auction off a piece of the company's history. He does not regret the decision.

Now, the Internet pioneer is planning a comeback. A number of dial up customers and Web sites who have been with Transend from the beginning refused to go when told of the firm's imminent demise. So, Nicolai put them all back on one of his computer servers.

Asked to elaborate on his future plans, Nicolai said he is just happy to have played a part in the development of the Internet in Taiwan.

"As a company, we're finished at this point ... but when the economic winds change, I'm going to take this plane off the runway and fly again," he said.
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