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newsletter://mv.com
February 2002
DSL specials!
We have two new DSL specials through the end of March, one for each of
our DSL products DSL/C and DSL/V. (DSL/C is provided on a separately-
installed line that is dedicated to DSL; DSL/V is implemented on your
existing Verizon phone line, allowing you to use the line for voice and
data at the same time.)
DSL/C: Get your order in by March 31, and the normal $100 setup fee will be
credited towards your access. You will still need to obtain the Paradyne
DSL modem ($185 if you purchase it through us); also, any inside wiring
required at your location will be an extra charge.
DSL/V: Get your DSL installed by March 31, and receive a $80 discount on
the DSL modem purchased through us, making your total install cost (includ-
ing installation and modem) $135. To make sure your order is completed by
the end of March, we suggest that you place the order by March 15. In
order to place the order, we must have your signed LOA (Letter of Autho-
rization/ Letter of Agency) and a required deposit.
Both of these specials provide an excellent opportunity to get your
business or your residence online with high speed DSL.
Please see our web page (www.mv.com) for more information about DSL --
our pricing and policies and areas served. Our customer support staff can
help you determine if your location qualifies for DSL.
Domain renewals and registrations
Do you have a domain name that is nearing its renewal date? We can
renew your .com, .net, or .org domain through our OpenSRS registry affilia-
tion for $12 per year. (Note that this covers the registration fee only:
that's in place of the fee that you'd otherwise be paying to Network Solu-
tions or the registrar that you are currently using.)
If your domain registration's expiration date is coming up, we advise
you to take care of the renewal a month or more in advance if you are
changing registrars -- this applies whether you are using our registry ser-
vices or someone else's. Your domain's current registrar has the final say
on whether to allow the transfer to another registrar. They are not
allowed to block the transfer without a legitimate reason, but some regis-
trars have been observed to use delaying tactics, waiting until the renewal
date has been reached before giving final approval, and then rejecting the
approval because they are now owed money for another year. Allowing lots
of time to get your transfer done will help prevent this.
When you transfer a domain to another registrar (such as our OpenSRS
affiliate), your renewal period is appended to your existing expiration
date -- so you don't lose any registration time by transferring early.
Also in domain registration news: we have signed contracts with Open-
SRS to allow us to register domains in a number of other top level domains
(such as .biz, .name, .tv, and others). We will also be signing on to pro-
vide this service for the .us top level domain as well.
Please see our customer service page at http://home.mv.net/ for more
information about transferring or registering domain names.
New Peering
MV participates in an informal set of arrangements with a number of
other ISPs to establish direct data connections with each other, so that
communications between our customers can take fast local paths rather than
going out through the Internet and back. This kind of arrangement is known
as local peering, or just peering. We see this as being good for users at
all the ISPs that participate, and reflects the spirit of cooperation that
has always existed among many ISPs in New Hampshire.
In February, we added high speed local peering with Lightship Telecom
(lightship.net) and their ISP, Net Resource (net-resource.com).
News server upgrade delayed
Last month we gave an end-of-February projection for an upgrade to the
Usenet news server. Time constraints and other priorities have pushed this
back a bit, so that we're now looking at a March/April timeframe instead.
MV Services and referrals
We like to give a reminder now and then that MV offers a broad range
of ISP services, just in case you are looking for other services and think
of us as offering only the one thing that you use. For example we provide:
* Dialup access
* UNIX Shell accounts
* high speed dedicated T1 lines
* high speed frame relay service
* web hosting
* two kinds of DSL service in certain areas in NH
* DSL service in areas in MA, CT, and RI
* server colocation including 24/7 passkey access
If you or your business are looking for an upgrade or a change, consider
us. Remember that we do offer referrals credits for new accounts.
Referrals and testimonials
Along the lines of the previous section, as an ISP we are always
interested in expanding our business and bringing in new customers. This
is simply a fact for any business. If you are happy with us, we hope you
will take advantage of our referral credits and encourage your friends and
associates to consider using us. We're also considering adding testimoni-
als to our web site and other promotional literature. This isn't something
we've ever done before, and in fact may decide not to do it now, but you
probably know what we're talking about here. If you're happy with us and
want to say so on the record, we would be interested in hearing from you.
There will be no credits involved for testimonials, as we're not looking
for paid opinions.
Also, if you are interested in expressing your opinion, there are ISP
referral services where comments and reviews can be entered. For example,
people looking for DSL service often go to DSLreports at
http://www.dslreports.com/ -- this is a great place to write your review
of your DSL provider, whether it be positive or negative.
SNMP filtering
A recent set of security advisories were issued about a broad range of
implementations of SNMP services. SNMP is the Simple Network Management
Protocol -- it's used by many network operators to continually monitor many
things about the devices and networks that they control. While this proba-
bly doesn't impact a lot of you, one of the implications of this advisory
does.
Up until now, we have not blocked any Internet traffic, except in cer-
tain security-related cases isolated to very specific sources or destina-
tions. With the release of this information about very widespread problems
in SNMP implementations, however, we made the decision to block all SNMP
traffic coming into our networks. Realistically, SNMP should not be used
across multiple networks anyway -- management should either be local or
made to look as if it were local (e.g. via tunnels), so this should not
have an impact. However, it does set a precedent here, in that we are now
blocking an entire class of traffic from ever entering MV.
MV Communications Inc PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000