Hands up anybody that remembers RedHotAnt (RHA)? The ‘Gio Internet’ of its day, RHA was a hugely troubled ISP. Using information available in the public domain we have been able to make some interesting connections between a string of defunct providers and E7even.

To help explain all this we will need to conduct a little history lesson, starting with RHA going all the way back to 2000; the year unmetered dialup first started to truly take off, albeit to a troubled tune. Searching our old news archives between 2000 and 2002 will turn up many such mentions of RHA’s equally tedious past:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/arcold.shtml

To cut a long story short, the latter stages of RHA’s life were most notably epitomised by several key events. The police raid on their premises, the confused mess as the service finally suspended to ultimately be closed down and its former MD (Kevin Wall) later being jailed for five years for his part in a £1.3 million VAT fraud.

Sometime after RHA had closed, ex-customers of the ISP began receiving promotional mail touting the launch of a new service (AlphaPhe.net). Searching for the title ‘Ex-RedHotAnt Users See New ISP’ on this archives page highlights the original piece:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/ispnews/archives2001b/arc1.shtml

On the same page (above), you can also search for the title of another news item ‘The AlphaPhe & RedHotAnt Debate’. Ever vigilant, our readers had noticed something odd about the new AlphaPhe (Longwave IT Limited) ISP, it had the same address as another provider, JAK Internet Limited. JAK Group was also the company behind RHA and later found itself in liquidation.

The official AlphaPhe / RedHotAnt connection reason offered was:

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“RedHotAnt ceased trading back in early 2001, however AlphaPhe.Net have utilised the skill- sets of some of the RHA techies by employing them to develop the AlphaPhe.Net ISP.”
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Nearly one year later and to quote our 2002 news item on Kevin Wall’s jailing (The Register carried the original piece):

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“Wall, 29, of Hythe in Kent, was also disqualified from being a company director for ten years. JAK Productions Ltd was forced into liquidation by MCI WorldCom, which was owed £5.5 million for telecoms services.

During the three-week trial at Canterbury Crown Court it also emerged that JAK Group owed £6 million to Level 3 Communications and £1 million to Cable and Wireless.

The ISP was also subject to an investigation by Trading Standards.”
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Fast forward to the present (2006) - these days RedHotAnt, JAK and AlphaPhe (Longwave IT) are just historic icebergs resting in the UK Internet Access industries troubled past.

Recently one of our readers, whom has chosen to remain anonymous, asked us to investigate a suspicion he had regarding whether or not Charlotte Mitchell was troubled ISP E7even’s director. Sadly E7’s site doesn’t appear to carry any names, although as a UK Limited Company its domain (e7even.co.uk) does have a company number attached: 4399272.

One quick visit to CompaniesHouse didn’t turn up any names either; although the business named was ‘MAGICAL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED’ (company appears to have been dissolved at the end of 2005).

We also note that the e7broadband.co.uk/.com domain had a different company number attached, with an address in Maidstone, Kent (ME16 0ST): 4776149. The official Companies House records for this number come with yet another address, one based at 27 Old Gloucester Street, London (WC1N 3XX), although this time it’s E7even UK Limited attached to 4776149 and not Magic Tech.

Our informative friend went on to suggest that Charlotte Mitchell may have also been the director of RHA and suggested a visit to the public information site 192.com.

Typically we already knew that RHA’s directors had been Kevin Wall and Bob Garrioch from old news statements, with no mention of any Charlotte, however our curiosity had been peaked and the following was turned up (personal address removed for security):

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/images3/RHA1.gif

According to 192.com’s generally accurate database, Charlotte Mitchell held/holds senior positions in three companies, including that of being E7even’s “Director”:

MAGICAL TECHNOLOGIES LTD (Director Company Secretary)
40-49 SOMERSET HOUSE PRICE STREET BIRMINGHAM B4 6LZ

E7EVEN U K LTD (Director)
27 MONOMARK HOUSE OLD GLOUCESTER STREET LONDON WC1N3AF

LONGWAVE I T LTD (Director)
108-110 CHARLES HOUSE FINCHLEY ROAD LONDON NW3 5JJ

Wait.. Longwave I.T LTD? That’s the same name and address attached to the original domain registration details for AlphaPhe.net and JAK. Curious indeed, not to mention that Longwave had been dissolved during late 2005 (02/08/2005).

Now we’re not making any accusations or predictions based on history here, just pointing to publicly available information and some interesting connections.