Freeserve denies one of top brass is leaving

Freeserve denies that any of its executives are about to resign, describing the suggestion as "nonsense".

Sources had previously suggested that one of its top executives was about to leave the company and earlier in the day the ISP had not denied these rumours. Last month its chief operating officer Frank Keeling quit following Freeserve's acquisition by French ISP Wanadoo.

The ISP hasn't been immune to recent tech gloom and has also struggled to maintain its unmetered service which had been running at a loss. In January it hiked the price of its £10 a month service to £12.99 and switched from a SurfTime product to the more financially sustainable Friaco model.

Freeserve was the pioneer of free subscription ISPs and its huge growth allowed it to float in March 1999. The radical shake-up in the unmetered access market last summer hit it hard and it was ejection from the FTSE 100 in October.

Chief executive John Pluthero has been an outspoken critic of BT, describing its DSL rollout as a "national disgrace". Freeserve, along with AOL is currently challenging the way the BTIgnite allocates ADSL connnections. At the time Pluthero accused BT of "institutionally restricting the market share of Freeserve". The allocation being awarded to Freeserve was "pathetic", he said.

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