Host Europe Group (formerly Pipex Communications plc and GX Networks) was an American-owned, European-located website hosting, email and domain name registrar company headquartered Hayes, West London. Founded as GX Networks in 1997, the company was renamed Pipex Communications plc following its takeover of Pipex in 2003. It reverted to the GX Networks name following its sale of Pipex in 2008 before being renamed Host Europe Group in 2009. It was acquired by American hosting company GoDaddy in 2017, and its name was in the process of being phased out.

Brands

Through a series of acquisitions and (de)mergers GX Networks (and subsequently Webfusion) is known through various brands. Since 2009, the company has consolidated its trading under the brand names: 123-reg (The UK's largest domain name registrar, with more than 3 million names registered and 1.3 million websites hosted), Heart Internet (UK hosting), Tsohost (UK hosting), Host Europe (German hosting), Webfusion (Spanish hosting), RedCoruna (Spanish hosting), Mesh Digital and Domainbox (international domain names).

History

Host Europe was founded by Cologne-based entrepreneur Uwe Braun. It began by offering internet services to corporations and began trading under the GX name in 1997. It believed that it had developed the first transatlantic IP backbone running native ATM. Webfusion originally started out with major Network Access Points in Washington and San Jose in the US, London's LINX and Stockholm in Europe. With various changes of ownership, the company's name has changed several times, taking on the Pipex name following its takeover in 2003. Following restructuring in 2009, the company trades under the Webfusion name in the UK, as part of HEG (formerly Host Europe Group) and is based in Hayes in West London. As of 2015, HEG claimed to be Europe's largest privately owned hosting company.

Timeline