0. Technical Updates 1. Lots of DSL News 2. Broadband Comes to Quarry Hill 3. Cheap Dial-Up Fixes 4. A Message for Web Hosting Customers 5. Holiday Hours 6. Contest News -- 0. Technical Updates Business Bundling & Wireless news. We have wonderful things happening in broadband. There are several DSL items of note in sections 1 and 2 of the newsletter. In this section, I have bundling news and wireless news. Bundling: Current customers, consider it a gift. New customers, consider it as one of many advantages for choosing Midcoast when you upgrade to broadband. Any business broadband customer can now receive free domain webhosting service with their business wireless or DSL connection. We are bundling the Domain Lite webhosting service with business broadband connections with no extra charge. This saves $12 per month for those that utilize both services. http://hosting.midcoast.com/ describes our hosting services. If you wish to take advantage of this bundle, you can signup online and mention in the signup comments that this is for the business broadband bundle. Wireless tiers: As mentioned in a previous newletter, MIS offers an even higher speed wireless internet service in certain areas. We call this the platinum service. Normal high speed wireless service is named Gold. http://www.midcoast.com/mis/broadband/wireless/ describes the two services and where they are available. Wireless: Wireless is now available in Waldoboro! downtown Waldoboro has long been without wireless due to its topography. We have had fiber optics run to a tower location which has a good view of the downtown and its two hills. We utilize new high speed 5.8ghz hardware for providing line-of-sight gold and platinum service, and non-line-of-sight 900mhz hardware to provide gold wireless service where trees would have traditionally prevented wireless internet service. If you're in Waldoboro and want MIS to be your broadband provider, give us a call or signup online for a free onsite signal test. We have also added 900mhz gold coverage in Camden at Quarry Hill. This means most of Camden and Rockport can get wireless internet regardless of trees that would have previously blocked a good signal. We have ugpraded our equipment in Rockport for 900mhz and have much more thorough coverage in Rockport as well. In fact, MIS has continuous wireless coverage along US Route-1 using 900mhz from Camden to Owls Head without requiring line-of-sight. As we continue to expand coverage and enhance services, we will mention the changes in our newsletter and on our website. Other technical news: We are not resting here at MIS. We are working on many new things. We are working on providing optional web content filtering. This keeps the more troublesome content off your employees' or children's computers. We are also testing further upgrades to our anti-spam system which should provide more effective spam detection without increased falses. This focuses on better detecting short spam emails that have URLs and minimum text. We hope to have more details in our next newsletter. 1. Lots of DSL News We've got a couple of announcements from the DSL department. Residential DSL: First, the price of DSL for residential use has dropped in the Tidewater Telecom area. Residential DSL service will now be $49.95, down from $59.95. "The costs for providing the service went down recently," said company spokesperson Bill Batty Jr. "We decided to pass those savings on to our customers. In fact, since we opened in 1995, we've never had a price increase. Our basic $20 plan from '95 is still $20. As technology changes, our prices drop, or the services offered for the same dollar figure go up." Midcoast Internet can provide DSL service to about 95% of the Tidewater Telecom area, including (but not limited to) Damariscotta, Newcastle, Union, Lincolnville, and Lincolnville Beach. Verizon area residences: A list of towns serviced and our competitive prices are here: http://www.midcoast.com/mis/broadband/dsl/v_dsl.html Business DSL: Bundling: Good news! All Business broadband customers (DSL customers included) now get a bundle of extra services. The details of this are in the first section of the newsletter. Also, we're now offering business class DSL in the Verizon area. http://www.midcoast.com/mis/broadband/dsl/v_bus_dsl.html Especially for businesses outside of the high speed wireless service area, or unable to get wireless, business DSL is now offered by MIS in many Verizon areas. The URL above describes the service areas covered, prices, and benefits. If your business has branch locations in different areas of the state, this service may be very useful! 2. Broadband Comes to Quarry Hill Resident of the Quarry Hill retirement community may now get DSL through MIS. This is $34.95/month and equipment with onsite installation is $100. Northeast Health had the excellent foresight to professionally wire the Quarry Hill campus with the proper extra wiring. This makes it easy for us to provide very fast service reliabily anywhere on the campus. Many thanks to their staff for properly designing the campus and for working with us to provide broadband to that community. 3. Cheap Dial-Up Fixes While there are many causes for dial-up connection problems, in this issue we'd like to focus on a couple of cheap dial-up fixes. If you find your connection isn't as fast as it once was, or if the line keeps getting dropped, here are some things to try. Do you use a phone line splitter--one of those little plastic things that splits one jack into two? If you do, try using your modem without that in place. If the results are better, get a new splitter for about $3.00. Or better yet, try to run without one. Is your computer a long ways away from the jack? Do you use a line coupler to make two short phone lines one long one? Try not to use them. Phone cord is pretty cheap. You'd be better off with a single 50 foot cord, rather than coupling two 25 foot cords together. And speaking of cheap phone cord--phone cables aren't the most sturdy things. You may want to replace your cord running between the computer and the wall. Do you use a surge protector on your phone line into the computer? You should be. But if you're experiencing a connection problem, try taking the surge protector out of the loop. Is there a difference? Maybe your surge protector did its job, and took a surge to save your computer. Maybe it needs to be replaced. We recommend not scrimping on a surge protector. If you spend a grand on a computer, you shouldn't think twice about protecting it with a $50-$100 surge protector. (For more info on surges, see here: http://www.midcoast.com/help/custservice/lightning.html 4. A Message for Web Hosting Customers Ever since Midcoast Internet has offered web hosting we have also had close relationships with many of Maine's best web designers. This relationship allows us to offer our customers the same convenience of a company that offers design and hosting in one package. This is because these independent designers work very closely with us while still being independent. What is the advantage? You can host on our high quality servers that are located locally and not resold services from out of state. You also get to personally pick what designer you like best based upon their work. So you the customer get the best of both worlds and not just a compromise of both. We stick to what we specialize in (and our designers do as well) and you get the best design and the best quality as a result. If you want to spruce up or update that old web page and you want to find a designer to help you do that, we invite you to check out our list of web designers here: http://midcoastdomains.com/webdesign/webdesigners.html You can also give us a call and we will be happy to refer you. 5. Holiday Hours November 25, 26, + 27: Thanksgiving (and the Friday and Saturday after). We'll be closed these three days. On Friday and Saturday, however, we'll have a technician monitor the email and voicemail systems. So though the office won't be open, if you have a problem, call and leave a message, or send an email to help@midcoast.com. Someone will get back in touch with you. December 23, 24, + 25: Things are a little strange with Christmas coming on a Saturday this year. Christmas will be observed (as far as the office is concerned) on Friday the 24th--we'll be closed all day. On Saturday the 25th, we'll be closed as well. Usually, we're open only 1/2 day on Christmas Eve, but this year we'll be open regular hours Thursday, December 23rd. 6. Contest News Congratulations to Francis Fernands! Francis was selected as the winner of October's referral contest. For referring a friend to us, Francis not only got $20 off his bill, but was entered in a drawing for two tickets to Flagship Cinemas. And Francis won! Congratulations again from Midcoast Internet and Flagship Cinemas (http://www.flagshipcinemas.com) A great prize in store for the November referral program. You may of read some good things recently about Tay Vaughan and his maps of Knox county. In fact, his map was used by EMS to locate a lost elderly man on a road not listed on most other maps. But it was on Tay's map! And he's provided us with a complete set of maps of every street in Knox county! These are really nice maps, and very well produced. Retail value is $22.95. Great for you, or it would make a great gift for that guy who never asks for directions! :-) You can see the maps at http://www.timestream.com/maps . -- Thanks for reading our newsletter. We try to pack it full of usefull information, as well as hi-lighting new products and services. Thank you for being a midcoast.com customer!