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Internet Revealed customers unplugged

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By Doug Schorpp | Saturday, October 13, 2007 | 1 comment(s)

A connection break has left several hundred customers of the former Internet Revealed of Moline without Internet service this week.

Although the problem was being worked on Friday, it was unknown when access would be restored.

Andy Tyrrell, president of Solo Direct Connect, Davenport, said his company has handled billing for Internet Revealed after that company closed

earlier this year. It was owned and operated by Bill and Joy Reveal since 1995.

Tyrrell said the Reveals approached him about taking over the billing of their customers. He said Solo Direct Connect also purchased Revealed’s “paper customer list” and the revealed.net domain.

Solo Direct Connect provides wireless Internet service for business customers. Tyrrell said Internet Revealed offers mostly dial-up service. He said that after Jan. 1, wireless Internet service will be available for the existing Internet Revealed customers.

He said somewhere in the relay system between the authenticated server and Qwest, which moves the connection forward to the Internet, there was a connection break this week which prevented customers from accessing the Internet.

“We put up a wireless bridge,” Tyrrell said Friday, adding that workers were trying to configure the system.

Tyrrell said responsibility for the problem does not lie with Solo. But because his staff has been inundated with phone calls and customers coming to the office in person, he hopes an attempt to fix the connection break will alleviate the problem.

“We will have to get together with Qwest or the Reveals in an effort to get the phone to stop ringing,” Tyrrell said.

The Reveals were not available for comment on Friday.

To complicate things, some Internet Revealed customers are under the belief that Solo “bought out” Internet Revealed, which is not the case, Tyrrell said. But as customers discovered this week that their Internet access was down, many began calling Solo Direct Connect and the former Internet Revealed phone number.

Tyrrell said the Internet Revealed number also is transferred to the Davenport Solo office. Because of the volume, he said many were not able to get through on the telephone.

Doug Schorpp can be contacted at (563) 383-2292 or dschorpp@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.