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newsletter://mv.com
January 2001
Upcoming changes in billing
As we mentioned in our September 2000 newsletter, we will be working
on some changes in the way we do billing. One of these is to change from
our current "bill in arrears" policy; currently we send a bill every two
months for the previous two months' usage. Over the next few months we'll
be joining the majority of ISPs and moving to a subscriber style payment,
where base payment must be received in order for us to provide service to
you. Note that some services can accrue charges in addition to the base
rate (for example, if you have a standard dialup account with a 300 hour
per month allocation, you might use more than the 300 hours in a given
month). Those additional charges will still be billed in arrears (i.e.,
after the usage).
We'll try to make this switch as gentle as we can. In about a month
after this bill (that is, in mid-February), we'll send out another bill
that will cover the January/February period; once that's done we'll effec-
tively be converted. At that time we'll include more detail about that
change, and about some of the other changes we have in mind.
Misc info
Welcome to new subscribers who have taken advantage of some of our
recent specials, and thanks to our continuing customers as well. We'd like
to remind you of some of the information that you can access at MV.
One place to start is at our home page on the web -- that is, at
http://www.mv.com/. Here you can find information about MV (and please
notice that we've finally made some updates to the "History of MV" that you
can find in the "About MV" link). You can find out about our various
offerings, keep up on current specials, policies, and find varied pieces of
information related to MV and to your use of this service. From www.mv.com
you can also access ClariNet News, which is an online newspaper that is
made available to you on our web server (and on our Usenet news server)
where you can read news, sports, features, editorials, world news, techni-
cal and business developments, comics, and so forth, all categorized so
that you can go directly to the kind of information that you want.
However, www.mv.com is intended as much for people outside of MV as it
is for you. We also have a site that is designed specifically for MV cus-
tomers: go to http://home.mv.net/ to check it out. From there you can get
easy access to technical support information, check on your account, find
links to other popular sites, and access other information specifically
relating to your use of MV Communications.
Specials
We still have some specials running through January 31, 2001 --
including an increase in the referral credit for bringing a new customer to
MV. Please keep an eye on our web pages for the specials that we run from
time to time -- while many of them are for new customers, some of them
(such as the increase in referral credits) are for existing users.
Other services
While you are visiting our web page, note that we offer a broad range
of services that may complement your other needs. You may think that we
offer just dialup services -- but we also provide other products including
frame relay and leased line connections, DSL services, collocation services
with 24x7 physical access, and web hosting.
NHISPA Happenings
MV is a founding member of the NH ISP Association, which seeks to fos-
ter cooperation amongst independent New Hampshire ISPs and to enhance the
value and status of its members. The NHISPA is presently involved in the
Public Utilities Commission (PUC) docket 99-020 which was originated to
address congestion in the telephone system in this state, inasmuch as that
congestion may be caused by dialup Internet use. The NHISPA has also reg-
istered as an intervenor in PUC docket 00-223, which combines issues from
several other dockets, issues which include how virtual NXXs are treated,
treatment of calls from an independent telephone company to numbers oper-
ated by competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), and the classification
of calls to an ISP as local or non-local. (Note: a virtual NXX is an
exchange code defined and operated by a CLEC in a particular local calling
area when that CLEC does not have any physical equiment in that local call-
ing area. The "NXX" term refers to the first three digits of a 7-digit
telephone number. For example, MV's various BNH numbers, NXX-6387, mainly
use virtual NXX technology.)
The NHISPA's President, Mark Mallett (also President of MV Communica-
tions), has been appointed by the Governor to the advisory board of the New
Hampshire Telecommunications Planning and Development Initiative created
last year under NH House Bill 1552. The committee is expected to have its
first meeting in January 2001.
For more on the NHISPA, see http://www.nhispa.org/.
MV Communications PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000