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M V ' s C o m m u n i c a t i o n
January/February 1994
Note: text copies of all issues of the monthly newsletter can be found
on mv in the public archive; look in /pub/mv/inews. They're also in
the online menu!
The lost month
You may have noticed nothing in your mailbox from us for the last
couple of months. Various crises, some of which are mentioned later
on, had us tied up, and we elected to put off the billing and the
newsletter for a month. So (unless you just joined us recently), this
month you'll receive invoices for December 1993 and January 1994.
Changes in dial-ins
The way you login when you dial mv directly has changed. (We've
mentioned this online, and so most people should know already.) For
online and UUCP callers, you'll now get an initial Connect: prompt.
At that prompt, online callers should type the word mv to get access
to the mv system. UUCP callers should modify your scripts to send the
word uucp at this prompt. After this, you'll get the login: and pass-
word: prompts as before. SLIP and PPP callers, as well as those who
connect via InfoPath and telnet, are unaffected by this change.
Telephone Tales
In mid-December 1993 we added some 2400 baud access numbers in
front of the normal access number in our hunt group. Little did we
know what was to come of that change. Often callers would receive
BUSY signals when many lines were free, and often they could get in by
dialing a number in the middle of the group. Reports to NYNEX yielded
nothing, as the problem seemed to come and go. After a month we were
advised by NYNEX that a change in the classification of our hunt group
would be necessary.
The day of this reclassification arrived, and with it came two
days of near telephone outage at MV. Our lines at first answered with
an "out of service" message and later did not hunt at all, so we
advised callers to try individual numbers. At the end of the second
day, NYNEX discovered a peculiarity in the configuration, something
apparently only possible at the Merrimack Central Office, and by even-
ing we were back on the air with fully hunting telephone lines.
Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. About three
weeks later we asked to have our two hunt groups combined, so that we
could provide all offerings on all telephone lines. When this date
arrived the same thing occurred: some lines gave "out of service" mes-
sages, and the others didn't hunt. By the end of the day, NYNEX put
the lines back the way they began the day, and the combining of the
hunt group has been rescheduled. We have an extra large bottle of
aspirin standing by.
So is there any good news, telephone-wise?
Despite the troubles, we do have some good news to report. We
are now able to offer all types of access (online, UUCP, and SLIP/PPP)
through both sets of hunt groups, and within a few days both groups
will be combined into one. We have also established a new number in
the Manchester exchange. If you are local to our main number, it's
best to call the 424 or 429 exchange. However, if you are not local
to the main number, but are local to Manchester, you can now call
645-NETS (645-6387) to gain local dialing access to MV. (The same can
be said for our Nashua number, 888-NETS).
Groups
On February 24, 1994, the Northern New England Unix Users Group
will hold its meeting via Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for the second
time. If you have access to IRC, tune in at 7:30 on that date, and
join the #nneuug channel. The first IRC meeting was free wheeling and
fun, and we're looking forward to a rousing session this time around.
A new organization, Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire, is in its
formative stages. Among its goals are the pursuit of civil liberty
issues as they relate to Internetting, and opening up access to
state-level government to users of the nets. A kick-off meeting was
held in January, with a presentation by Shari Steele of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. Send an email note to efnh-info@mv.mv.com for an
autoreply with brief information about the organization and its elec-
tronic mailing lists, or write to efnh@mv.mv.com for direct contact
with organizers.
Policy for users under 18
Because of the breadth of information available on the Internet,
and the responsibilities of being an Internet member, there are con-
cerns about access to the networks by young people. MV has no way of
restricting access to information, nor do we feel it's our place to do
so. So, MV requires authorization from a parent or guardian in order
to open accounts for anyone less than 18 years of age, and such
accounts are billed to that authority. It isn't our intention to
prohibit people younger than 18 from having access; in fact, we think
there are many valuable resources and opportunities on the net for
young people. But we think it's appropriate to leave that decision up
to parents or guardians.
Changes in billing
Up until now, MV has had a pretty liberal approach (sometimes
unintentionally) to allowing access in advance of payment. Because of
ever-increasing demands on service, we are going to make some slight
changes to our billing policy. The most significant change is that we
will be requiring new users to make a deposit against their bill, and
this deposit will have to be received before their initial three free
hours is over. We don't mean to be onerous about this, but we've
found that the long lead time for first bill for new users means that
some 50 to 60 percent of our users are new and unbilled, meaning that
you folks, the current users, are paying for them. (It's tough on us,
too!).
The second change is that we will be billing the monthly account
minimum for the next month at the time we send out the monthly bill.
This will start for the bills covering February, meaning that those
bills will include the March minimum. Usage in excess of the minimum
will be billed on the following invoice.