PAOLA OFFICE
103 N. Silver, P.O. Box 348
Mon - Fri.....8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
LOUISBURG OFFICE
On-site service by appointment
| Voice Lines | |
| Paola Office | 913-557-2777 |
| Louisburg Office | 913-837-8400 |
| Paola Fax Line | 913-557-5608 |
| Dial-Up Lines | |
| Paola-Miami County Area | 913-294-9666 |
| Louisburg | 913-837-9666 |
| KC Metro | 913-789-8194, 913-441-7911, 816-459-4814 |
Monthly membership payments are due in advance by the first of each month.
Storm Damage
Virus Warnings - Updated 06-28-02
User Agreement - Updated 01/02/03
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January 02, 2003 Happy New Year. With the new year, comes our new Internet server. We are pleased to announce that the new Internet server we purchased a couple weeks ago has passed testing with flying colors and is now 100% in operation as our main server. Our old server has been changed to now act as our primary backup and the old backup server has been taken out of service pending us finding another possible use for it. With the new server comes faster processor speeds and more (tighter) security as well as better login history tracking abilities. Part of the tighter security is now the inability for the same username to be logged on to the server more than once. This means if you have shared your name and password with someone else or are using it on two computers at the same time, only one computer will be able to log on at a time. As part of our yearly company review, we have made a few changes to our Membership Agreement. You can take a look at your current Membership Agreement by clicking on this link. November 26, 2002 I have not had much to report for some time so this page has not been recently. I have just a couple quick notes today. Yesterday afternoon we took down the e-mail server for maintenance. If you had been experiencing problems connecting to the e-mail server to send or receive messages yesterday afternoon or early evening, you would not have been able to do so for this reason. The amount of SPAM that travels the Internet is astounding. When a SPAM message arrives on our server for a deleted address, the "bounced" message is stored for returning to the sender as undeliverable until the server finishes other processes. At one point yesterday that number of undeliverable returned-to-sender messages had reached over 7000. It took some time, work and a lot of patience to delete those outgoing messages. The final effect is more space on the hard drive, less processes waiting to run on the server and quicker mail service for sending and receiving e-mail messages due to a less number that are required to be sorted. In other business, I want to thank the Louisburg customers that took a couple minutes to respond to our speed survey in Octobers billing. We are going to finish up that project in the coming weeks and maybe see some satisfaction from our efforts. Finally, I would like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and holiday season. Our office will be closed for Thanksgiving and the following Friday (11-28 and 29), closed Christmas day (Wednesday, 12-25-02) and closed New Years day (Wednesday, 01-01-03). July 17, 2002 We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting payments for your monthly Internet service through PayPal, by using the link above or on our main web page. Customers may use their credit cards, check debit cards or checking account information to send the electronic payments directly to us. Our policy remains in effect that payments are due on or before the first of each month, considered late after the 10th of the month resulting in a $5 late charge and subject to denial of access to service if still remaining unpaid after the 15th. The payment is done through a secure server and all fees are paid by MCIO which means that the customer receives full credit for the amount they pay. July 5, 2002 This is an effort to provide some clarification to the July 3, 2002, Miami County Republic front page story on "DSL is coming to county". Sprint Telecommunications Company has introduced DSL, high-speed Internet service into Spring Hill. It is currently being used by several customers on a test basis and will be offered on a larger scale once upgrades to existing hardware is completed. Even after it is offered on this larger basis, many Sprint Spring Hill customers living in new sub-divisions will not have access to the service for as long as a year as Sprint estimates it will take this long to rework existing hardware already supplying dial tone to these new areas. What about our Paola customers? The Paola calling area is subject to the services of Southwestern Bell (SBC). On June 14, 2002, SBC representatives were in Paola to conduct a discussion group for Paola business/leadership individuals. Attending this meeting from SBC were the Kansas President of SBC Operations and the Director of External Affairs. Accompanying them was the SBC Employee Union representative. Part of this meeting was to answer questions relating to DSL services. It was also explained that due to current regulation, two years ago SBC paused their upgrading hardware to provide DSL service. Currently only approximately 20 of the 170 SBC service areas in Kansas are capable of providing DSL to its customers. Under current regulation SBC is required to allow access to their lines and hardware to its competitors at a reduced rate and then the competitor sells service to those interested in it at a rate lower than SBC's rates. If SBC installs new hardware (for DSL services, in this example) at their own expense, SBC is then required to give access to competitors to that hardware and receive nothing in return for its use. In contrast, Classic cable does not fall into the same catagory as SBC. Classic Cable can install hardware as needed to supply high-speed Internet and is not required to share its resources. For example, there is no way that I can approach Classic Cable and expect them to allow Miami County Internet to purchase use of their cable lines at a reduced rate to then turn around and offer our Internet service to their customers at a rate lower than Classic Cable offers the same service. One of the key purposes of the leadership meeting sponsored by SBC was to see if there could be legislative support found to back a change in regulations that would allow SBC to continue the necessary upgrades to expand its DSL service and then not be required to give access away to competition. Following their meeting, the SBC representatives met with area Kansas State legislatures for a lunch meeting to test how much support they might find for such a regulatory change. Recently regulations were changed in Oklahoma and within months, DSL services were available in areas that were at one time not serviceable. The SBC representatives stated that funding has been in place for several years and is currently available to move ahead if and when the tables are leveled through their proposed changes to the current regulations. SBC is very aware of the interest in high-speed Internet access through existing phone lines in our area and feel that Paola would be one of the first areas upgraded to provide service into. While the prospect of high-speed access is something many customers would like to have, DSL service does have a major limitation. Currently DSL service has a distance limit of approximately 18,000 feet from the switching station for the area. Paola's switch is located just 2 blocks north of the square in downtown Paola. The limitation may be somewhat deceiving as far as how the distance is measured. The distance is measured in feet of copper telephone line from the switch, not 18,000 feet in a straight line or driving distance. So while someone may live within 3.41 miles (approx. 18,000 feet) of Paola's telephone switch, the length of copper wire would likely be much longer of a distance to the same point. A positive point to DSL is that the customer is able to still select their Internet Service Provider. This means that Miami County Internet could still be the provider of choice for area DSL customers to use. This is something that we prepared ourselves for in mid 1999 through the purchase of a new router that was DSL compatible. At that time, we understood that SBC would have DSL service in our area in the late 4th quarter of 1999 or first quarter of 2000, before they held their upgrades because of the dis-favorable regulations currently in place. This "partnership" is something that we continue to discuss with SBC and are looking forward to starting as soon as they have DSL service available in our area. What about our Osawatomie customers? The Osawatomie calling area is serviced by Sprint. Any DSL service becoming available in Osawatomie would be completed by Sprint. While there was no mention of Sprint DSL service coming to Osawatomie in the near future in the newspaper article, Classic Cable does currently provide high-speed access to its cable customers in Osawatomie. What about our Louisburg customers? The Louisburg calling area is serviced by MO-KAN Dial. Again, any DSL service becoming available in Louisburg would be completed by MO-KAN Dial. The newspaper article provided no information concerning Louisburg DSL service and there is currently no low-cost high-speed option available for Internet access in Louisburg. June 13, 2002 The hardware relocation project went off without a hitch. Louisburg customers were connecting back onto the Internet by noon. Our new UPS looks like it is operating property and the batteries have a full charge for over 2 hours of operation in the event of electrical failure. June 5, 2002 THE MOVE IS ON. The day has been set. On Thursday, June 13, 2002, we will be taking Louisburg service down at 8:30am, for an unknown number of hours, while we relocate our Internet hardware to a different location. We intend to have things back operational as soon as possible. MO-KAN Dial, KCP&L and the electrician will have their jobs completed by Tuesday, which gives us Wednesday to make the final preparations for the move on Thursday. All customers should note that since we will be working on the hardware move, that our Paola office will be closed for most of Thursday. May 25, 2002 News - The service interruption problem Thursday evening in Louisburg was caused by a lightening strike that caused a hub that is used with our hardware to fail. It also caused an electrical fire in the attic of the location where we store our hardware that required fire department response to get under control. We are very fortunate that there was not more damage then there was. Update - The Louisburg hardware relocation plan has been set for June 6th or 13th. We are still getting final preparations completed for the move. More to come later on that. Holiday - Our office will be closed on Monday May 27th. Have a fun and safe weekend. May 23, 2002 Just a few quick notes..... Be sure to stick with updating your virus software. Of the 20 or so computers we have had in the office in the last 7-10 days, most have been as a result of old and outdated virus software not doing its job - or worst of all, no virus software at all. It only costs around $30 for software from WalMart and can save you money of you install it before becoming infected. Once infected, most virus software won't even install correctly until several other actions have been taken to dis-infect the computer.....a time consuming and expensive task. Next, with billing falling on a Thursday and Friday this month, processing and mailing of the monthly Statements did not get completed until the first part or middle of this week.....those customers not yet receiving their Statements may relax, as they should be arriving soon. Please remember all payments are due ON or BEFORE the 1st of the month (regardless of if you receive a Statement or not) and past due if not paid by the 10th, resulting in a $5 late charge. Finally, steps to relocate our Louisburg hardware has started moving along very quickly. The telephone company is expected to have the required cabling run into the new location this week and this should mean that Wednesday or Thursday of next week (May 29th or 30th) we will be taking service down for several hours during the day while we relocate our hardware. Keep checking here and our main page for the exact day and time ranges. I have also purchased a 3000 VA Smart UPS to be installed in Louisburg for battery backup when power outages occur. Over-estimating our power usage, this unit should keep our hardware operational for at least 4 and a half hours during a power outage. May 1, 2002 A quick note that everyone should check out my most recent virus update for new information. So far today I have received this virus 4 times and it is only a little after 11am, yesterday I received it 12 times, and in the past week I have probably seen the virus software warning catching it 50 times or more. April 16, 2002 It has been a long while since I last made an entry in the newsletter. The main reason for this is that there has not been much to report. We have been staying busy with signing up new customers as well as working on customer computers with modem problems due to a recent thunderstorm. We would like to once again remind everyone to UNPLUG THE TELEPHONE LINE from your computer just as you do with the electricity during times of bad weather. The first quarter of 2002 resulted in a very good growth in our customer base, especially in March, a record month. Our modem usage charts indicate usage still within reasonable limits of capacity, so that means no or at the most, very few busy signals when trying to connect in Paola or Louisburg. Should you be experiencing connection problems, please try rebooting your computer (actually turning it off) then try reconnecting again. If you still have a problem please feel free to give us a call. If you seem to be experiencing problems in the form of getting disconnected, please check two things: first, if you have call waiting, please make sure that you are disabling it for the Internet call. If you are unsure as to how to do this, please call our office for instruction; second, please check your e-mail program to make sure that "hangup after send and receive" is NOT check marked. The e-mail check mark in hangup after send and receive is a big problem we see that causes the computer to terminate your connection and customers then believe we are having problems or disconnecting them when in fact it is a selection someone probably inadvertently made in the software on your computer. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US...............and so on. I'm not for sure where to start with birthdays this month. I have a friend in Kansas City that turns 21 years old this week (happy birthday Jeremy), another friend Nathan turn 25 years old on the 24th, we (MCIO) turn 6 years old on the 26th and I turn 40 years old on the 26th as well. A trip to Chicago for the wedding of a cousin of mine the weekend of the 26th-28th is how Nathan and I are celebrating. By arriving a few days early for the wedding, we expect to explore what Chicago has to offer before the wedding business kicks off. In other news, as vice-chair of the Miami County American Red Cross, I would like to take a minute to invite anyone interested in volunteering their time to the chapter to contact me by e-mail or telephone at 913-557-5575 for additional information. We are training in first aid and CPR as well as seeking volunteers for training in many disaster assistance areas including fire victim assistance and many other classes. The local chapter is always in need for more volunteers and for those wishing to take a very active duty in the way the chapter continues to grow there are open positions on the current board of directors with 3 more positions becoming available in October. Now is the time to start getting familiar with your chapter and its volunteers so that you may provide direction, guidance and most importantly assistance in times of need. Today seems to be the day that I have selected to do my web publishing. I have not only updated this newsletter, but also our users e-mail page, our Community Events page, our Virus Warnings page, and our Membership Agreement page. Another project that Boz never completed was the redesigning of our web site. I am slowly working on finishing that project...one page at a time. Also please visit the web page for the new neighbor in our building, Star Employment Services. Our Louisburg customers need to be aware of some changes coming in the near future. Sometime during the month of May, service will be interrupted for 6 or 7 hours during the week, probably on a Wednesday or Thursday. You should keep yourself updated through this newsletter or our main page for additional information as to the exact date and times. I will post notices both places once everything has been scheduled. 02-02-02 I can't resist! Check out the date.....02-02-02. Chip chip scrape scrape. Ice anyone?!? The last few days have been, to say the least, interesting. I consider myself lucky in one way and just like everyone else in another. While the office has been very fortunate to have only lost electricity for 5 and 1/2 hours Thursday afternoon, my house has been cold and dark since 8pm Wednesday and still is now, 7:20am Saturday morning, with a minor exception explained below. In the office, our battery backups lasted between 40 minutes and just over an hour. In an attempt to solve the problem pending the electricity coming back on, we went to Louisburg, de-iced the motor home and brought it back to Paola to connect its on board generator to just our Internet hardware to get service back up and going. Did not work, the power drain was too much for the generator to support the hardware. But by 8:30pm the electricity was back on and things were getting better. I think we have been very lucky, this was only the second time in almost 6 years of business that we have been down for more than a couple of hours.....and both of these cases were "acts of nature". In my attempt to make sure we did not run into this type of problem again, I found a portable generator large enough to take care of us next time. In the meantime, back home. Being a child of the 70's and a single, working college student of the 80's, I have enjoyed sleeping on my free-flow waterbed for almost 20 years now. Remember I have no electricity at home, waterbeds have heaters that require electricity to keep the water warm enough to allow for a nice toasty sleep during the long cold winter nights. Well, so much for nice and toasty with no electricity for 48 hours plus. Since the electricity is back on in the office and I already have this new generator, I once again have my waterbed heater working very hard to get by bed warm again, my now empty refrigerator is cooling once again and maybe today I will get the furnace hooked into the generator and the house become comfortable once again with warmth. I would have never thought we would be without electricity for this long, almost 60 hours. January 19, 2002 I have been busy updating most of our web site pages. Take a few minutes to check things out. As I am by no means perfect, if you catch a mistake, please do not hesitate to let me know. January 14, 2002 Happy New Year. We hope that everyone had a fun and safe holiday season. December and so far in January has seen a lot of new customers coming in and keeping us busy. So far we have been able to keep things going fairly smoothly, even with all the year end stuff that needs to be taken care of. With the exception of a couple of service problems related to Southwestern Bell Internet Services, all has been operating very well. In looking back to my 2001 newsletter, I see that I have failed to update some changes in our offices in Paola and Louisburg. In Paola, John Boswell is no longer with us. In Louisburg, we have moved Lois from being there in the morning to Paola full time. The Louisburg phone number of 837-8400 still works and forwards to us in Paola. The office space we were using in Louisburg recently became filled with 6 others working for a realty business, so space become a little cramped and with the changes in Paola, it worked good to move Lois to Paola full time. I am going to be working in the coming weeks to make some updates to our web site to make everything much more current and more uniform. Web publishing is not something that I have taken much time to learn, but I will do my best and see what happens. View Newsletter for 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001
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