Breathe.com: The latest high profile failure

The Guardian ("expired") reports that having run up debts of £50m the ISP has now called in administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers to tout the company around to any buyers who may be prepared to take on the company and its considerable baggage.

The Financial Times ("suffocated") points to the squeeze on funding in the sector as being the reason behind the company's collapse. Breathe has failed in its attempts to secure a second round of funding.

The FT also takes the human angle on the story - reporting that the company employed 140 staff who will now be looking for alternative employment (though not adding "in the run up to Christmas" which would have made the tragedy of the company's timely demise all the more apparent).

The fall of Breathe is being billed as the biggest dot-com failure since the collapse of boo.com and carries with it a warning for the rest of the sector. Breathe.com was not the largest ISP - in fact it was the fourth - but with 500,000 subscribers to its unmetered internet access it is certainly high-profile enough to trouble United News & Media, still looking to offload its LineOne ISP, and renew fears as to the profitability of the ISP model. This said, Breathe's offer of £50 for a lifetime of free internet use was one of the more outlandish business models in the market.

The Financial Times also makes mention of the smaller ISPs still struggling with their own unmetered internet offers due to the per minute billing they have to meet from BT. For many the unbundling of the local loop cannot come soon enough...