Almost monthly newsletter.
This month Inspire Net has been in business for 25 years, it feels like only yesterday we celebrated 20 years. We are still locally owned and operated and are proud to sponsor numerous local organisations and events as part of giving back to our community.
Our Team will be enjoying a celebration lunch this Friday 8th September. You may find our team are a little slower to answer your calls while the team enjoy their lunch.
For those customers that have joined Inspire Net recently, a very brief history…….
I started Inspire Net in 1998 with my flatmate, doing dial-up internet access at an affordable price for our local calling area, from the traditional Kiwi start-up location of my garage.
To put this into a bit of perspective of how things have changed, we started connecting people about 4 days after Google was founded, before it was even a search engine of choice. This was before Windows XP, 7, 10, 11, Android tablets, nearly 10 years before the 1st iPhone.
After a number of years working from my garage at home, it got pretty cosy in the garage with staff and equipment, so we moved down into our building on the corner of Main and Andrew Young Street in Palmerston North, “Inspire House”. These days we also have our Inspire Net Infrastructure division (the team that build our wireless towers and fibre) in our workshop / warehouse just around the corner.
From providing affordable Dial-up services in the early days, surviving the arrival of the “free” dial up internet companies that came and went, to now, where we provide broadband over copper and fibre, voice calling, website hosting, domain names and mail services nationwide, including our own Wireless and Fibre networks around our greater region servicing many homes, farms and rest homes that had no options for better Internet. We have grown from 2 staff in 1998 to around 35 today. Several of our team have been with us for over 20 years, and a larger number well over 10 years, and I would like to thank them all, including those that have moved on to other journeys in their life, we could not have done any of this without the support of our whole team.
A number of loyal customers have also been with us since the start (Thank you!). We pride ourselves on providing great friendly customer service in a timely manner, and I like to believe that this is our point of difference in a bit of a crowded market space, our whole team strives to provide the best customer experience possible, and to be here when you need us.
I have always believed that a company should give back to the community where we live, work and play. We are proud sponsors to Organisations like Hospice, Ronald McDonald house, Palmerston North Hospital Free WIFI for patients and staff, Centrepoint Theatre, local Basketball, Cricket, Golf, Hockey, Netball, Squash, Swimming, to name but a few.
The last few years have been a fair turmoil of lockdowns, people working from home, massive changes to how we all work, and also what our customers need for their lives. I feel we have come through it all better than could have been expected, given the immense pressure on our network and team to deliver additional services to match the sudden changes.
If you would like to read the whole story that we put together for our 20 years click here: https://www.inspire.net.nz/20years
In true geek fashion, the 25th has arrived quicker than planned, and we have not had time to update our 20-year story to 25 years yet, but I promise we will by the time we turn 30 😊
Many thanks to all our customers, suppliers, supporters, friends and family over the last 25 years, we could not have done it without you all.
James Watts
CEO / Founder
Inspire Net Limited
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