We have been offering DSL access for almost a year now. If you were one of the unfortunate people that contacted and signed up through Southwestern Bell for your DSL service, your one year contract is getting ready to expire and your monthly rate is going to go up between 48% and 85%. You might want to consider dropping DSL billing through SBC and call MCIO for your no-contract rate of only $29.95 per month. Please visit our web site for more information.

The wireless access we are reselling for a Wichita company is proving to be very reliable and popular. The contacts we have made and are now using their service are all very pleased. The Louisburg and Spring Hill area towers are operational and the Paola/Osawatomie and Wellsville towers are in the next top 10 towers slated to become active sometime late summer or fall. More information can be found here.

A few months ago we reorganized our online camera system. We changed to a different type of hardware configuration that allowed for a total of 4 cameras and better images being loaded to the web. This system also allows for recording of all 4 cameras. We started with adding an additional camera to our pole outside looking at our office, camera 2. At the same time we changed the office camera to match the new system, camera 3. This left one more open space for an additional camera. This week we have reorganized our office by removing our old small workbench and installing a new, larger bench and adding the 4th camera to look down onto it. With the large workbench we can now easily work on two computers at once allowing for shorter turn around times to get the customers computer back to them. Our camera system may be viewed at this site. Leave the user and password fields blank and simply click submit. If you switch to single camera view (in the bottom right corner click on the single blue box) then right click on the image, you can select which camera you view as a single, larger image. Please keep in mind that using dial-up this may run slow. If you are wondering what we did with the office camera that was replaced, take a look at our weather page and see if you can find it.

I received an e-mail last night that I looked at just out of curiosity. My first (and correct) thought before even opening it was that this is going to be a scam, but I wondered if it would actually be good enough to catch anyone. After reading it once, I thought to myself for the innocent unsuspecting customer this might actually sound for real. Would you fall for this:
start quote........

From: support@citibank.com
To: {your actual e-mail address}
Subject: Notification of Citibank Unauthorized Account Access

Dear Citibank customer,

We recently reviewed your account, and suspect that your Citibank Internet Banking account may have been accessed by an unauthorized third party. Protecting the security of your account and of the Citibank network is our primary concern. Therefore, as a preventative measure, we have temporarily limited access to sensitive account features.

To restore your account access, please take the following steps to ensure that your account has not been compromised:

1. Login to your Citibank Internet Banking account. In case you are not enrolled for Internet Banking, you will have to use your Social Security Number as both your Personal ID and Password and fill in all the required information, including your name and your account number.

2. Review your recent account history for any unauthorized withdrawals or deposits, and check your account profile to make sure not changes have been made. If any unauthorized activity has taken place on your account, report this to Citibank staff immediately.

To get started, please click the link below:

{link deleted for the purpose of this newsletter}

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your assistance in helping us maintain the integrity of the entire Citibank system. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

The Citibank Team

Please do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered. For assistance, log in to your Citibank account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.

end quote

This one was actually pretty well written. I was only able to find one typo in the text of the message, in #2, the word "not" where "no" should have been used. Upon initial examination, if I actually had a Citibank account I might think about following the instructions. If you had the same thought it was real, I would hope that you decided to call Citibank using one of the phone numbers they provide on your monthly bill and discuss this e-mail with them and then question any activity on your account. If I look at the detailed properties of this e-mail, I find that the true sender is someone called "drifters5" from an Internet provider located in California called Powweb. Neither of which sound like they would remotely even have anything to actually to with support at Citibank. Identity theft is an increasing problem in this country and e-mails like this is certainly one of the reasons. This message contained no virus or attachment, only a link they hoped you would click on and provide your private personal information. Any message of this nature you actually think may be true, should be followed up with a phone call to a phone number you get from something you have received that you know is from the actual organization. E-mails you receive from unknown persons that have an attachment should not be opened just to see what you have received, no matter how interesting or inviting it may sound.

Happy surfing.

Effective immediately, May 17, 2004: (1) accounts will be considered as past due on the 5th of the month; (2) past due accounts will be accessed the $10 late charge on the 6th of the month; (3) accounts with an open balance on the 10th of the month will have their internet access suspended; (4) accounts remaining unpaid and in suspension status on the 15th of the month will have their account balance adjusted to reflect cancellation on the 15th of the month, be removed from the server, and mailed a final bill, due immediately. Any customer cancelled under these circumstances that returns for service will be subject to their final adjusted balance due, if any, plus the new account $25 enrollment fee.

Effective June 1, 2004: (5) any account written off as a bad debt will no longer be reported to CSC credit services. This will not apply to accounts cancelled prior to May 31, 2004.

We have found this to be a difficult decision to make and implement. However, when the accounts receivable at billing time on the 16th remains in access of $7,000.00 and it should have theoretically been $0 on the first of the month, we feel there is no reason to keep customers active and on the books who are not going to pay their bills. In order to keep our charges to the customers at our current rates we must be be able to collect from our customers in a timely manner to pay our bills. Some may be surprised to know that just in telephone company charges alone we pay out more than $17,000 per month.

It has become fairly well known that we are now selling DSL access in the immediate Paola area. DSL is a service provided by the phone company just like your dial tone telephone service. As with dial up internet service over your phone line and being able to select your dial-up ISP, you are able to select your DSL provider as well. We have had many customers convert to us as their local DSL provider and have been able to keep their own e-mail addresses, local support and billing through MCIO. Another benefit you have by selecting MCIO as your DSL provider is that in addition to the one-year contract we also offer DSL service on a month-to-month basis, unlike most other providers. An extra benefit with DSL is that you may cancel the 2nd telephone line you may have for dial-up service as you may use your normal telephone dial-tone for phone calls AT THE SAME TIME as your DSL service is in operation. If you would like to see if you fall within the distance limitations and phone line quality requirements of DSL service, please call John at MCIO at 913-294-2777 to have your information evaluated. Once the order is placed, you may expect to be online with high-speed DSL internet service within 7-10 days.

For the Louisburg and Spring hill areas we are now reselling a line-of-site high-speed wireless access for a company out of Wichita. More detailed information on this service option can be found on this web site. Coverage for Paola/Osawatomie from the Osawatomie tower as well as the Wellsville area from the Wellsville tower will be available later this summer as those towers come online. Please note that this service is line-of-site.....meaning you must be able to see the tower from your location to get the service and the tower must not be more than 10 miles away. Trees can and will block the wireless signal. It should also be noted for those customers who qualify for this service, while it is sold by MCIO and installed by SPS of Paola, you are not a customer of MCIO, but rather you will receive your support, billing, etc from the Wichita company. If you would like to see if you qualify for the wireless service, please call John at MCIO at 913-294-2777 to schedule a site survey of your location. Once the contract is signed and the order is placed, you may expect to be online with high-speed wireless internet service within 7-10 days.

MCIO is now offering SPAM FILTERING with a program based on our mail server. Complete information about this service may be found on this web site.