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newsletter://mv.com
November 1997
K56flex access is here in Nashua
By the time you read this, our K56flex access should be up and available
for use in the Nashua location. This access is provided via a dialin number
(886-7124) that is separate from our other hunt group numbers in Nashua, and
supports both K56flex and ISDN calls.
K56flex is one of the two competing so-called 56K dialup technologies.
This one is from Rockwell (see www.nb.rockwell.com/K56flex and www.k56.org);
the other is US Robotic's X2 protocol. It's expected that both of these pro-
tocols will be superseded by an eventual ITU standard, and that there will be
upgrade paths to that standard from both K56flex and X2.
If you have a K56flex-capable modem, this access can give you download
connect rates up to 56Kbps, as opposed to the current maximum of 33.6Kbps
given by V.34 modems. This protocol is asymmetric, using the higher rate in
one direction (from MV to you), and a standard V.34 connection in the other
direction. Thus your maximum upload rate (i.e., from you to the Internet)
will still be 33.6Kbps. For most users this is not a concern, since the
usual application involves retrieving data rather than sending it. As with
all modems, your actual connection rate will vary and will almost certainly
be less than the maximum. The rate will depend largely on how your call is
carried by the telephone company. Your call may pass through any number of
pieces of telephone switching equipment and wherever there is a signal
conversion in that equipment, there will be a reduction in the maximum con-
nection rate that you can achieve. However, we expect that most users will
experience higher connection rates using K56flex modems dialing the new 56Kb
access number than with normal 33.6 access.
The new number also supports ISDN calls. Be aware of any telephone
charges you will incur by making ISDN calls, particularly data connections.
In New Hampshire, circuit switched ISDN data calls (i.e., 64Kbps digital con-
nections) are charged a per-minute rate, as well as a charge per connection.
On the other hand, if your equipment supports it you may be able to make
data-over-voice ISDN calls at 56Kbps, which will be charged at the same rate
as other voice lines in your location and on your bill (i.e. if your other
voice lines have measured local service, your DOV calls will be measured ser-
vice; if your other voice lines are unmeasured local calling, your DOV ISDN
calls will also be unmeasured).
Note that MV makes no representations about any telephone charges
incurred by your calls; and information presented by MV (here or elsewhere)
should be used as fodder for discussion with your telephone company.
K56flex in other locations
We originally expected the same K56flex/ISDN access to be available in
Dover on November 12, too. Unfortunately, at the last minute Bell Atlantic
informed us that PRI service would not be available in Dover for some months,
due to facilities shortages there. (PRI is a digital service we need in
order to support ISDN and voice calls). As an alternative, we will be ins-
talling new access in Dover via T1, which can provide the K56flex access but
not the ISDN service. Bell Atlantic has given us an earliest install date of
December 7 for this new service, but has promised to upgrade it to PRI when
it is again available, probably in March 1998.
We don't have definite information for other locations at this time, but
we will continue to post updates to the mv.forum.general newsgroup, as well
as in the "news" area on our web page (go to www.mv.com, click on "Extended
Information for MV Users", and you'll see the news option in the Announce-
ments section.
Server news
MAIL: In October, as many of you know, we replaced the mail and POP
server. This replacement was partially to solve some nagging problems with
the old one, and partially to move to a faster system with more disk space
and to upgrade the operating system software. For the most part the move
went well, and the new server has indeed been robust and stable. However,
there were more users than we expected who were using erroneous configuration
information to access the mail and POP services. This erroneous configura-
tion generally consisted of referring to the underlying machine name (i.e.
bort.mv.net) rather than the server name (such as mail.mv.net). It might be
prudent to review your configuration and make sure you are using correct
server names: see below for some common configuration items.
NEWS/NNTP: This month we're working on a new Usenet news server. This
news server should be up and ready for internal testing by the end of
November, and online for general use soon after that. The new news server
will have about 4 times the disk space of the present server, and that will
allow us to have much higher retention times on the news articles. As was
true with the mail server, it's important that you use the proper server name
when accessing news - don't use the underlying system name or the IP address.
If you use the server name, when we put the new server online you will then
be accessing it without having to change any of your settings.
WEB: In October we added another 4GB of disk to our web server. We also
added proxy capability to the web server. A proxy server, should you choose
to use it, acts as an intermediary for your requests. The proxy server will
cache frequently-requested information so that it can give you that informa-
tion quickly, rather than having to fetch the original copy from its source
on the Internet each time. You may not want to use this all the time; how-
ever if you know (for instance) that there is a new copy of a popular
software package that you want to download, it would make sense to use the
proxy server to fetch it. If you want to use it, configure your browser to
use a proxy server of proxy.www.mv.net.
A little-known fact is that we run a "secure" web server on top of the
normal server. A secure server uses RSA encryption of the data that is sent
between the browser and the server, assuming that the client browser supports
the encryption. If you have a web page in the www.mv.com tree (e.g.,
www.mv.com/users/mem) and if you are using forms (e.g. via form-submit), you
can use the secure server for the same web data. Because of the way that the
encryption works, the URL that you use for the secure server MUST begin with
www.mv.com - URLs with other domain names will not work even if they are an
alias for data in the www.mv.com tree. Simply use https: instead of http:
for any URL where you want to use the secure server. You should probably use
https: only where the form is active, rather than keeping the client in
secure mode for all of your web pages.
Server names for IP users
Here's a review of some of the servers that you should use for your IP
account. You may want to check your settings to make sure you are using
these names.
Nameservers(DNS): 199.125.85.1 and 199.125.85.2 . Most software lets you
put in two nameserver addresses; if you only have a place for one nameserver,
use either one of these.
POP (for retrieving your mail via POP protocol): pop.mv.net
Mail or SMTP: mail.mv.net
Usenet news (nntp): news.mv.net
Web server: www.mv.com
Proxy web server (if desired): proxy.www.mv.net
Note that for the several of the above servers, you may be using a
server name such as pop-xxx.mv.net, where xxx is a three-letter code
corresponding to the MV location you dial into. e.g., pop-lnh.mv.net would
be the name for a POP server if you dial into Litchfield, New Hampshire.
POP, Mail, and News server names of that form are also correct.
Billing: this and the next
This bill covers service through the end of October, 1997. Although we
have recently been issuing bills every two months, we expect to have another
billing out next month to cover November service.
MV Communications, Inc....PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108....(603) 629-0000