Following what looked like a victory for the pint-sized Whole Earth Networks in its dispute with UUNet over interconnection fees, the Whole Earth board handed a pink slip to its president on Tuesday. The announcement was posted Wednesday on The Well, which, like Wenet, is owned by Bruce Katz and his Rosewood Stone Group.
David Holub, until now president, CEO, and CTO of the 18,000-subscriber ISP, claims he lost his job for taking a tough stance in the negotiations with UUNet, which reportedly has been threatening to drop its peering arrangements with a number of smaller ISPs, including Wenet. Holub's posturing seems to have worked - it won Wenet an agreement for continued interconnection with UUNet - but shortly afterward he was terminated.
Holub asserted that UUNet is taking advantage of the Net's unregulated status to threaten the little guys with disconnection in the hope of collecting new connection fees or even shaping the Net into a big-boys-only network.
"A move like UUNet's invites the attention of regulatory agencies and everyone will end up paying for it," says John Russo, CEO of GeoNet Communications, a network provider to businesses, which is also in discussions with UUNet about its peering relationship.
"The hard stance I took was over my concern for my business, but also for the industry as a whole," Holub told Wired News.
Spokespeople at both Rosewood Stone and Wenet confirmed that Holub had been fired and that Kevin Randolph has been named acting CEO, but would make no other comment.
Meanwhile, phones went mostly unanswered at Wenet on Wednesday, with employees reporting a widespread sick-out in protest of losing their head honcho. Holub was the founder of Hooked, which Katz bought last year and merged with the ISP business of The Well to form Wenet.
