Editing Demon Internet (section)

{{Short description|British Internet service provider}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox company
| name           = Demon Internet
| logo           = Demon Internet.png
| logo_size      = 200px
| caption        =
| type           = [[Subsidiary]]
| predecessor    =
| foundation     = 1 June 1992
| location_city  =
| location_country = United Kingdom
| key_people     =
| num_employees  =
| parent         = [[Vodafone Group]]
| industry       = [[Telecommunications industry|Telecommunications]]
| products       = Business [[Landline|fixed line]], Internet services and [[Technical support|IT support]]
| revenue        =
| homepage       = {{url|http://www.demon.net}}
}}

'''Demon Internet''' was a British [[Internet service provider]], initially an independent business, later operating as a brand of [[Vodafone]]. It was [[List of UK ISPs by age|one of the UK's earliest ISPs]], offering [[dial-up Internet access]] services from 1 June 1992. According to the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'', it "sparked a revolution by becoming the first to provide genuinely affordable access to the internet in the UK".<ref>{{Cite news|publisher=Daily Telegraph|title=Obituary:Cliff Stanford|date=4 March 2022 |page=31|location=London |df=dmy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mansell |first1=Robin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VOciwO7I50AC&pg=PA208 |title=Inside the Communication Revolution: Evolving Patterns of Social and Technical Interaction |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-829656-0 |pages=208 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1997 Demon was bought by Scottish Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of the private utility company [[ScottishPower]]. Scottish Telecom rebranded as [[Thus (company)|Thus plc]] in October 1999 and floated on the [[London Stock Exchange]]. Thus plc fully demerged from ScottishPower in 2002. Thus became part of [[Cable & Wireless plc]], and then part of [[Cable & Wireless Worldwide]] following a split of its parent. The company was purchased as part of the acquisition of [[Cable & Wireless Worldwide]] by [[Vodafone Group]] on 27 July 2012. Demon then operated as a brand of Vodafone.

From 1996 to 2006 Demon operated a subsidiary ISP business in the [[Netherlands]]. It was sold to [[KPN]] in June 2006 and its operations transferred to their [[XS4ALL]] subsidiary.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?id=763&taal=en |title=XS4ALL company news item |access-date=12 November 2009 |archive-date=28 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628195628/http://www.xs4all.nl/nieuws/bericht.php?id=763&taal=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

In January 2019, Vodafone announced its intention to close Demon and migrate its 15,000 remaining customers to more modern services.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/vodafone_to_shutter_demon_internet/|title=Begone, Demon Internet: Vodafone to shutter old-school pioneer ISP|first=Andrew|last=Orlowski|date=11 January 2019|website=[[The Register]]|language=en|access-date=2019-02-11|archive-date=12 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190212011905/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/11/vodafone_to_shutter_demon_internet/|url-status=live}}</ref>