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newsletter://mv.com
July 1997
June Happenings
June brought two major events to MV Communications.
The first was leaving our long-time office in the Litchfield Technol-
ogy Park in Litchfield New Hampshire. The Litchfield Technology Park was
a fancy name for what was once a supermarket, converted to an industrial
building that came to be our corporate home for 6 years. We shared this
building with a video store, a hair stylist, and several technology-
oriented manufacturing companies employing, in total, 50 people or more.
One of our neighbors, needing more room for their growing business, bought
the building and let us know that they would like to expand into our
space. They gave us plenty of notice and although there were options to
stay in the building, we elected to move on. The Litchfield office had
suited us well for a long time, but it was an environment better fitted to
computer equipment than for people. On June 16, we moved our servers and
our staff to our new offices at 55 Bridge Street in Manchester. (We're
still unpacking.) Our web page has some info and pictures of the new
office; go to the "Extended information for MV users" link off of the main
MV web page ("www.mv.com"), and you'll find it within the "News and Items
of Interest" link. You may want to make note of our new phone number:
(603) 629-0000. If this isn't a local call for you, you can still use our
toll free number, 1-800-MVC-NETS.
The second June event was our anniversary. On June 21, 1997, we
began our seventh year as a corporation providing Internet access to New
Hampshire. (The MV.COM domain was registered in the fall of 1987, so it
will be having its tenth anniversary later this year.) It is interesting
to reflect on how far and how fast the Internet has progressed over the
last 6 (or 10) years. In 1987 there were only a few thousand Internet
domains; in fact, in 1989 BBN published a handbook which listed all of the
known domains and their contacts (yes, MV.COM is in it). In 1991, when we
incorporated, there were about 10,000 domains - now there are over a mil-
lion. In 1991 there were no WWW users to speak of, and in fact the
"gopher" program had only just been introduced. It's tempting to go on
here, but if you want to see an interesting Internet timeline, point your
browser at "http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/" and select the appropriate
entry there.
We feel that over the last 6 years we have made a lot of contribu-
tions to the Internet in general and in helping to get New Hampshire
online specifically. Overall, the most significant of these was showing
that Internet access could be had by anyone: not only large businesses and
organizations, but small businesses, families, and individuals. We did
not have a model to go by: we (and a handful of other ISPs around the
country) provided the example and helped to plant the seed that grew into
the ISP industry. Thanks to everyone who has helped to support us along
the way.
Mail Relaying
Since the last newsletter we took steps to prevent our SMTP mail
servers from being used to relay mail for third parties. Bulk emailing of
commercial and other unsolicited and unwanted messages is, as you are no
doubt aware, becoming a major problem on the Internet. Senders of this
kind of mail often try to hide their return address in order to evade the
backlash that inevitably follows. One way of covering their tracks is to
use intermediate relay points to help disguise the path that the mail has
taken.
The problem has become so severe that ISPs and other organizations on
the Internet have been forced to prevent the use of their mail servers for
relaying mail, even though historically and traditionally such relaying
was done in the spirit of cooperation with the rest of the Internet. But
now, we've taken steps to see that our servers can only be used for mail
that comes from an MV user or goes to an MV user. Any attempt to use our
mail servers to relay mail from one outside party to another will be
prevented. There is at least one unfortunate consequence of this. If you
access the Internet from another location that is outside of MV or not a
customer of MV, up until now you may have simply kept your software con-
figured to send outgoing mail via MV's mail server. While we don't object
to that and we aren't trying to prevent that specifically, it will be a
victim of the new anti-relaying measures -- trying to keep track of and
allow access from all the outside locations that MV users might use would
be beyond our ability. If you're accessing the Internet from another
location you'll need to use the mail server(s) provided for you as part of
that other access.
Account Options
We'd like to review a few of the account options that you may not be
aware of.
* telnet-only shell: An option that we offer for shell accounts is
telnet-only. (A shell account gives you a login on a UNIX system at
MV, where you can use the Internet tools provided there. This is
text and command line oriented; all you need for a shell account is a
basic terminal or a terminal emulator.) If you do not need to dial
directly into our modems to use your shell account, you can have it
set to telnet-only. For instance, you might only use the shell
account by telnetting to it from work, thus you wouldn't need to dial
into our modems to use it. Or, you might have a combination of an IP
account and a shell account, and you'd telnet to the shell account
via the IP connection (note that in this case, connection time would
accrue to both the IP account and the shell account). A telnet-only
shell account is charged half the normal rate (unless it is dormant);
all other pricing terms and conditions apply (note that a combination
of an IP account and a telnet-only shell account would also qualify
for a group discount per our rate schedule.)
* dynamic IP address: Some of you, especially if you have been an MV
customer for more than a year or so, have an IP account with a static
IP address. This means that every time you log in, you get the same
IP address that is assigned to your account. With a static IP
address, you must dial into a specific MV location - the static IP
address is tied to that location and can't be used at another one.
On the other hand, if your account has a dynamic IP address, you will
be assigned an IP address every time you connect. Having a dynamic
IP address allows you to log into any of the MV hubs - for example,
if you are local to both Nashua and Litchfield you'd have your choice
of those locations to call.
To find out if you have a static or a dynamic IP address, you can go
to our web page. Click on the "Extended information for MV users"
and then on the "Find out your host name" selection. If the host
name that appears is the name of your site as it is in your email
address, then you have a static IP address. If it is a name that is
related to the MV hub location, e.g. "lnh-1-05.mv.com" then it is a
dynamic IP address.
* dormant accounts: If you need to close your MV account for some rea-
son, we provide a way for you to have your mail forwarded for a nomi-
nal fee. This is via the "dormant" account. Any dialup account that
does not have any usage for an entire month will automatically be
billed at a $5/month rate. You can call us to set up your mail for-
warding, and terminate the account when the forwarding is no longer
needed. Alternatively you can continue to have mail come to the
account and access it via POP from elsewhere, again terminating it
when it's no longer needed. Also, the base allotments are lower for
any standard web page associated with a dormant account.
MV Communications, Inc. (603) 629-0000