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The History of LMi.net

LMi.net was formed as a partnership in January 1992 between Gary Morrell and Dan Callaway, and later incorporated in the state of California in March of 1993. The original name of the company was "LanMinds, Inc.", LanMinds was established to provide network installation services. During its first few years, LMi.net installed many large and complex local area networks in the San Francisco Bay Area. As employees were added, LMi.net was able to provide on-going computer consulting services to its network clients, as well as provide these clients with a wide range of computer hardware and software.

Beginning in 1994, LMi.net started offering limited Internet service, primarily UUCP mail routing to its existing client base. PPP dialup was then added, and LMi.net first started advertising its Internet services to the general public.

In November of 1995, LMi.net formed a strategic partnership with Hart Computers of Tokyo, Japan. Hart Computers resold LMi.net's Web hosting services to Japanese businesses at a substantial savings to them over what other Japanese hosting companies were charging. At the time, LMi.net was the only US-based ISP offering Web hosting services in Japan.

In 1996 LMi.net moved to its present location, 1700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley, California. The larger space and improved telecommunication facilities enabled LMi.net to grow its Internet business quickly. They soon thereafter expanded beyond its Berkeley base to offer dial-up access throughout the Bay Area. ISDN and Frame Relay were added to the list of Internet services LMi.net offers.

In October 1996, LMi.net began to offer dial-up Internet access along the front range of Colorado, from Denver to Ft. Collins. LMi.net installed equipment in local retail stores, and supplied those stores with dedicated Internet access through a Frame Relay network across all of the store locations.

On January 1, 1998, LanMinds Inc. began to brand its Internet services under the name LMi.net. A number of reasons precipitated this decision. The foremost is that the name LanMinds was derived from the acronym for Local Area Network (LAN) which accurately described the company at its founding, but has come to represent only a small fraction of what the company does. Therefore, the phrase "LanMinds Internet" was shortened to LMi.net which is a more Internet-indicative name than LanMinds.

In September of 2000, LMi.net was acquired by a Denver-based ISP called Rocky Mountain Internet (RMI). RMI acquired a number of independent ISPs and networking companies around the nation, including companies in Seattle, Utah, Oklahoma, Chicago, and Arizona. After RMI completed these acquisitions, the name of the company was changed to Internet Commerce and Communications (IC&C). At this point LMi.net was a branch of the nationwide company IC&C and was controlled by the management of IC&C in the Denver headquarters. The previous independent corporation, LanMinds, Inc. was officially dissolved. At this time, IC&C sold their dial-up services to EarthLink.

In July of 2001, IC&C filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and soon thereafter laid off 90% of the staff. At this point, some of the former staff members of LMi.net decided to start a new ISP. They volunteered their services to get the new ISP going and help customers with their Internet services. Locrian Enterprises was formed and began to operate out of offices in downtown Berkeley. Locrian arranged for dial-up services, and some customers of IC&C who did not want to get dial-up services from EarthLink signed up with Locrian.

In October 2001, IC&C (the whole company, including the Berkeley branch) went on the auction block and was bought by a company in Texas. Locrian Enterprises, owned by the previous owners of LMi.net, purchased the assets of the Berkeley branch of IC&C from this buyer. This allowed customers of the Berkeley branch of IC&C to become customers of Locrian Enterprises without interruption in their services. LMi.net and Locrian are the same company - an independent ISP based in Berkeley, CA.

In December of 2002, Dan and Gary formed Phrygian Enterprises in order to purchase the LMi.net building at 1700 Martin Luther King Way in Berkeley. This ensures that LMi.net is here to stay!

LMi.net has successfully weathered the storms of the hi-tech economic downturn and has returned to its roots: operating as a local, privately-owned company with a connection to the local community and a dedicated customer-oriented staff. Please join our family of happy customers. We sincerely value your patronage. Vive LMi.net!