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newsletter://mv.com
April 2003
New bandwidth
On April 17 we turned up a new T3 backbone connection to Paetec Commu-
nications in Boston, via a fiber circuit provided by Neon Optica (a
regional fiber carrier). We're currently running this connection at
12Mbps, bringing our aggregate backbone connections to 30Mbps. This new
connection not only adds to our total capacity but increases our diversity
in routing (meaning that our routers have more choices when selecting the
best way to reach a site on the Internet) and our redundancy (giving us
better protection in case of failure in any one circuit).
As always you can find out about our backbone connections by going to
our web page (www.mv.com) and clicking on "About MV."
Spam again
We're still moving along in our work on mail services which, among
other things, will begin to provide individualized antispam measures. Some
recent discussions in the mv.forum.general usenet newsgroup have prompted a
brief reminder here: when we started down this road we announced that we'd
be taking a step back not just to examine what's needed to address spam,
but some wider goals for our email services in general. For us this pro-
ject is about better, more productive use of email, and antispam measures
are one niche in that effort. This does mean that the job we have chosen
is larger than it would have been to just hammer in some ISP-wide filtering
on top of our existing mail structure (in addition to which we're loathe to
apply any ISP-wide solutions at all -- filtering choices should be yours,
not ours).
But while we are mentioning spam: you might be interested in a recent
study done by CDT, the Center for Democracy and Technology. In this study,
CDT analyzed some of the ways that spammers get hold of email addresses,
how long an email address stays in the hands of spammers, how to stay off
of spam lists and whether it's reasonable to try to ask spammers to take
you off of their list. Some of the results are surprising.
Find the report at: http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamre-
port.shtml
Mailbox quotas
Also on the subject of mail: before we made the big switch from send-
mail software to qmail, we had a system of mailbox quotas enabled. In this
old system, most mailboxes had a default limit of 5MB. If you received a
message that caused your mailbox to get bigger than your limit, you'd get a
message telling you your mailbox was going over quota, followed by the new
message. Any subsequent messages would be rejected (bounced to the
sender).
When we first installed qmail, we left quotas turned off for a while.
The theory was that we wanted to bring in the new qmail system in stages
where we could, so that we could resolve any potential problems in one
stage before moving on to another. But now we've recently re-enabled the
quotas on the mailbox server.
Quotas under qmail work a little differently than they did before.
When your mailbox goes over its quota, all new mail coming in to your mail-
box will sit in our mail queue for a while before being delivered. This
gives you a chance to download some or all of your mail, at which point new
mail sitting in the queue will be delivered from the queue fairly quickly.
(Any mail that sits in the queue for more than a few days, though, will be
returned to the sender.)
The main point of having mailbox quotas is to keep mailbox sizes at a
manageable size. Most people really do not want thousands of mail messages
sitting in their inbox -- and if that happens, it's usually a configuration
mistake (e.g., you've configured your mail to be left on the server without
deleting it or moving it to another folder). It's much better to have a
mailbox quota that will help avoid this situation so that you can address
it early, rather than than to try to correct it later when the mailbox gets
very large.
The default quota on mailboxes is 10MB -- if you find that this is too
restrictive we are happy to raise it (within reason).
NH tax on communications services
Our compatriots at the NHISPA (New Hampshire ISP Association) have
been following the development of an Internet tax in Concord (and special
thanks to Brian Susnock at Destek for lots of time spent in this pursuit).
HB705 was introduced in the House to establish a Study committee to study
the elimination of Internet Taxation. Somewhere along the line, the word
"elimination" was struck out, and a new section was added to codify the
collection of a 7% tax on "the gross charge for communications services
purchased at retail from a retailer." To a lay person this would seem to
conflict with the US Government's moratorium on new Internet taxes. Ironi-
cally, the recently-adopted NH resolution HR9 "urges the federal government
to extend the Internet Tax Freedom Act moratorium," while at the same time
the Department of Revenue Administration may already be at work selectively
collecting the 7% tax from some providers of high-speed services. HB705
now moves on to the NH Senate where it may be passed in short order.
Passage of this bill would serve to ratify a new 7% tax on Internet
services. It's not just that this contradicts the Federal moratorium on
new Internet taxes, but it would add a cost overhead to the provision of
Internet services in the state. There are also concerns about how enforce-
ment of this tax would apply to out-of-state entities, putting NH-based
Internet businesses at a strict disadvantage. All in all we think this is
a bad move.
You can have a look for yourself by going to:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ns/billstatus/quickbill.html
and searching for HB705 (and HR9).
New DSL/V offices open:
We're pleased to report that several new areas have opened in NH for
DSL/V. North Conway, Plaistow, and Plymouth are now open -- if you have
Verizon phone service within about 3 miles of the central office in these
areas, you may be eligible for DSL/V! To see if you qualify, look on
home.mv.net under "Customer Tools" or contact us.
MV Communications, Inc. PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000