ZDNet Australia was forwarded an e-mail that was sent to Access 1 customers late Thursday night which warned that the service would be "terminated permanently from 5pm Friday the 25th of November". However, a correction e-mail sent at 9.06 am Friday morning stated the service would end at 5pm that evening.
Customers of Access 1 have not been invoiced in over six months, around the time Access 1 was purchased by digital media company Swish Group. In January Swish announced its intention to purchase Access 1 from then owners Didasko Limited, and the transaction was completed in May.
Rather than the lack of invoicing customers, Swish gave another reason for the closure of Access 1. "This is due to an ongoing dispute with one of the key technical suppliers of the Access 1 ISP service that is essential to operating the ISP platform," read the e-mail.
At the time of publication Swish had not responded to ZDNet Australia enquiries as to the exact nature of the dispute, or who it was with. Nor did Swish respond to questions as to why customers hadn't been invoiced for six months.
Swish has recommended its customers switch to Pacific Internet, despite the fact that Access 1 offered satellite broadband and Pacific Internet uses DSL technology. Swish purchased wholesale bandwidth from Pacific Internet, and still owes them money for the connection.
At a meeting over the matter Swish asked Pacific Internet to turn off the service to Access 1 customers.
"We turned out connectivity to Access 1 customers off at the request of Swish," Dennis Muscat, managing director of Pacific Internet Australia told ZDNet Australia .
"There was a situation where we were providing connectivity, so there is an amount outstanding," said Muscat, "but we are looking to settle that without too many nasty things happening."
