Tiscali

1998

In the land of silence, a new communication is born. Now our village is the world.

S.p.A. was founded by Renato Soru, in January 1998, following the deregulation of the Italian telecommunications market. Based in Cagliari, the company takes its name from a 2,000-year-old nuragic village hidden in the centre of Sardinia. For centuries, the village was the shelter to the Sardinian population from invaders' attacks, a shelter whose main protection was silence. Communication was born from the silence, and communication supersedes isolation. From the land of silence and isolation, from a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, Tiscali broke the rules of monopoly, and the name of the silent village became the name of a project that has developed into a

pan-European company. Initially established as a regional telephone operator and Internet Service Provider (ISP), Tiscali rapidly expanded its operations throughout Italy, differentiating itself from its competitors with innovative services and marketing strategies.

1999

The FREElosophy.

In March 1999 Tiscali launched the first free Internet access service, giving a new and significant boost to the growth of the whole market and establishing itself as an undisputed prime mover. Through its innovative proposals, and by making use of the flexibility of its organisation and the reliability of its network, Tiscali has succeeded in overcoming the existing monopolies, thereby revolutionising the rules of the market. In October 1999, the company was floated on the Italian Nuovo Mercato, raising the capital needed to finance its project to become a

pan-European player.

2000-2003

All that you seek is inside you

Thanks to the IPO (Initial Public Offering) Tiscali embarked on an expansion plan through a series of mergers and acquisitions of major existing Internet companies. During 2000 and 2001, the Group began its pan-European consolidation of the major independent European ISPs, including World Online International, the Dutch ISP with a very large footprint in Europe, and Liberty Surf, the ISP leader in France. This, in combination with the merger of more than twenty companies, brought Tiscali to a consolidation of its position