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newsletter://mv.com
May 2001
New DSL offerings
We're pleased to add several new residential SDSL offerings to our
DSL/C service. These additions represent some new data rates that were
made available to us, including symmetric data rates from 128 through 768
Kbps, and are very attractively priced. In addition, we've reduced the
price on our DSL/C 128Kbps business SDSL service.
If you are in one of our DSL/C coverage areas, you may find one of
these services to be of interest. Please see the Rates and Services sec-
tion of our web page (http://www.mv.com/) for more detailed information
about these new rates, as well as information about all of our DSL ser-
vices.
As we mentioned in a previous newsletter, we also expect to be adding
some new services areas outside of NH in the near future. Our first remark
about this evoked some concern that it would be better to have more areas
in NH, to which we emphatically agree. However, this simply reflects an
opportunity for us to add some existing areas already covered by one of our
DSL CLEC providers. This addition uses our existing resources and as such
does not represent significant additional investment, so we see it as a
good thing. At any rate, please stay tuned for information on this.
Domain registration news
As you probably know, there have been a lot of changes in the Internet
domain registration system. For a long time, there was only one place to
go to register domains in the .COM, .NET and .ORG top level domains. There
is now competition in registry services, providing a lot of options but
perhaps also resulting in some confusion.
MV has partnered with the OpenSRS registration service of Tucows. The
OpenSRS partnership allows us to administer the domain registration opera-
tions locally, and to obtain registrations at a much lower rate than you
may be used to. In addition, this relationship will provide us with the
ability to register domains in the new .BIZ and .INFO top level domains.
At this writing we have begun to utilize this relationship for some of
the domain names that we own. Very shortly we will be providing access to
this domain registration service to our customers as well. Please watch
our web page news section for more continuing information.
New bandwidth plans
As you may know, we currently have Internet bandwidth via backbone
connections to four major carriers (our connectivity is described on our
web page -- http://www.mv.com/ -- in the About MV section). We mentioned
earlier that we were working on plans for increases in our Internet band-
width. Part of this has occurred: we have increased the capacity of
bandwidth that we get from Globalcrossing via a connection to Destek on our
T3 ATM circuit. Another part of this is still ongoing: we have placed
orders to upgrade our T1 circuit to Genuity/BBNPlanet to a T3 circuit via
direct fiber connection into their Boston POP. This will give us multiple
high capacity T3 backbone connections, using diverse entry points and
diverse carriers for extra redundancy, with an ability to turn up bandwidth
as needed on short notice. As of this writing we do not yet have a firm
order commitment date for delivery of the new T3 service -- however the
fiber is already in our building and it's just a matter of having new MUX
equipment provisioned, and we're told that a mid-June delivery date is
probable. As for the two remaining T1 backbone connections: we will con-
sider their value when their respective contract renewals come up.
Dormant Rate Clarifications
In our last newsletter you read a little about some upcoming changes
to the Dormant rate for dialup accounts. The dormant rate is kind of a
stealth rate, since we don't list it on our dialup rate pages (and really
only mention it as a casual reference in the web hosting rates), yet some
of you have no doubt seen it on your bills. The way it worked was: if you
never used your account during an entire month, we'd only bill that account
$5 instead of the normal monthly rate. This was done automatically. The
original purpose of the dormant rate was to provide a way for you to keep
your account open if you have moved somewhere else and need your email for-
warded.
One point of confusion this last bill was that the base fee billed for
the next month is the normal rate (i.e., $20), and not the dormant rate.
This is because we can't predict the dormant status for the next month: we
bill the base fee for the account. This is natural, and if your account
does end up being dormant, the fee for that month will be adjusted when the
actual usage is calculated at the next billing.
Another point of confusion: we apparently left the impression that the
dormant rate would be going away. It's not: we're simply making it so that
it's no longer automatic. You'll need to put your account into a dormant
status if you want it to be dormant. Note that this status will apply to
an entire month at a time, there is no option of being partially dormant.
This change will happen effective September 1, 2001 -- so make sure you get
your account changed to dormant status by then if you intend for it to be
dormant. (You will of course be able to change your account to dormant or
back to normal status after that date -- the change will apply after you
make the request.)
One final note: we've long had a bug in the billing of dormant
accounts that, under some circumstances, priced them at $2.00/month instead
of the intended $5.00 . This bug is being fixed, also effective September
1, 2001. If you've benefited from the bug, we hope you enjoyed it -- but
now that we're making the dormant status an official rate, we need to make
it work correctly.
Billing Notes
EMAIL BILLING: A reminder that sending out paper bills will incur an
additional fee. This change will begin as of the September billing, so if
we can send you your invoices via email, please remember to set this up
with us before September 1.
REFERRALS: We continue to receive new accounts as referrals from you,
our existing customers -- in response, we are raising the referral credit
from $10 to $15. For every standard dialup account that you refer to us,
you'll receive a $15 credit to your account when we receive their initial
account deposit. Have them mention your mv email address or account number
to ensure that you receive the referral credit.
MV Communications, Inc. PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000