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newsletter://mv.com
November 2002
Mailbox directories
The mailbox account change that we noted in previous newsletters is
about to happen. (A "mailbox account" is an account on our mailbox server
that is used to hold incoming mail for your dialup IP account as well as
some other kinds of access accounts. Note that a Unix shell account is
something different and has its own mailbox on the shell server, so this
change does not apply to shell accounts.)
During the first week of December, we will be making this change.
Prior to the change, your mailbox account gave you one or possibly two
things:
* A mailbox for incoming mail, that you could access via email programs
supporting POP or IMAP mailbox access;
* Optionally, if you have set up the personal web space that you get with
your dialup account, access to this web space.
This change will add a home directory to your mailbox account. This
means that your mailbox account will have an area for storage of files in
addition to the incoming mailbox. The home directory will have a "Mail"
subdirectory that will allow you to create and maintain mail folders. If
you have set up that personal web space mentioned above, you will also have
a "Web" directory that will give you access to that web area.
This will affect you in two main ways:
First, you will have the extra storage space available. If you use the
IMAP protocol to access your mailbox, you can start creating and using fold-
ers on your mailbox account right away.
The second part affects you only if you currently have and maintain a
personal web space. Up until now, to update your web space you make an FTP
connection to the mailbox server, using your mailbox login and password.
This FTP connection initially places you directly into your web space.
After this change, to get into your web space you'll have to go into the
"Web" subdirectory in your mailbox account. (Please remember not to confuse
your web space with the storage space in your mailbox account.)
MV will be providing you with additional tools and information to help
you manage this space over the next few months. Watch the Tech Support sec-
tion of http://home.mv.net/ for more info.
Realize that this is the first of several changes that we are making to
the server, with a goal of giving you extra capabilities, such as spam fil-
ters. Adding home directories to your mailbox account is a prerequisite to
some of the other changes we will be making.
DSL/V area openings
The town of Berlin is now open for DSL/V service, with Hampton expected
by the end of November. Conway, Hanover, Meredith, Newport, Plaistow,
Peterborough, Seabrook, and Tilton are expected to open in December, with
Franklin, Goffstown, Jaffrey, Lebanon, Littleton, North Conway, Plymouth,
Penacook, and Suncook expected to follow in January 2003.
NH Telecom tax
We've received some preliminary information that the state of NH will
be expecting ISPs to collect telecommunications tax on services rendered.
While we don't have details on this yet, we wanted to mention it here. More
will come as we get full clarification.
NH PUC VNXX ruling
In other political news, the NH State Public Utilities Commission
recently issued an order that affects dialup services in NH. Many ISPs pro-
vide local dialup numbers through the use of "Virtual NXXs", which are tele-
phone number prefixes (exchanges) that provide local access to particular
areas in the state while the telecommunications equipment service those num-
bers is located in a different part of the state. Concerned that the
assignment of new exchange codes wastes the pool of numbers available, the
PUC has ordered that calls to ISPs be handled by a single state-wide prefix
instead of using multiple prefixes. Providers have 6 months to implement
this change. All existing numbers will be kept active (grandfathered) but
calls to those numbers will be charged as if they were calls to where the
equipment is located (which, in our case, is in Manchester).
As with the telecom tax issue, we don't yet have complete details of
how this will affect you, but wanted to give you some notice that this was
in the air. While it's not unreasonable to predict that there will be some
appeals and delays in the implementation of this order, the transition is
supposed to occur around April 2003. We'll keep you posted on this.
MV Communications, Inc. PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000