NetSource Newsletter -- 10/01/97 A lot has been happening at NetSource recently. This newsletter will bring you up to date. Below is a list of the topics in this newsletter. Feel free to jump to any topic. NetSource Expansion Complete! NetSource 56K Offer, WOW! Customer Survey Good Attendance at Free Classes NetSource Partners with SimplyFine New Network Status Reports On-line New Features/Services Small Business Solutions Quarter 4 Billing In-progress What some of our customers are doing FYI NetSource Expansion Complete! You have already heard much about this so we will just summarize here. NetSource planned an expansion to add local phone numbers for dial-in Internet services across Chicagoland. This was a major effort for us but now the job is done. We think that the effort was worth it as several improvements have come with the expansion. Many of you told us in our periodic surveys that you wanted more local numbers and now you have them. We've also simplified the login process and now have free Microsoft Internet explorer software available, tailored to NetSource services, to make the startup process even simpler. The addition of 56K technology is something you asked for and this is already a big hit with many customers that have upgraded (more on this below). We are monitoring the service very closely since we made these changes and plan to continue our policy of continuous service improvement. We feared that the system may be less stable after the expansion but so far, once the expansion was completed, the system has been extremely stable (not that we are superstitious but we hope you are all knocking on wood about now; just kidding :^)). NetSource 56K Offer, WOW! WOW is right! Those of you that have upgraded to the 56K modems, using USRobotics/3Com modems, have told us how surprising the speed is. You say it makes viewing web pages and downloading files noticeably faster. We have heard it is difficult to get over 40k with other providers but we are hearing much higher with our customers, most getting in the 50s (53k is the best you can get with this technology). If you are interested in this technology, all you need is an x2 modem and to change your dial-in phone number. We sell the modems in the store plus we do free installations. See details at the following link, http://www.ntsource.com/newnet/usr.htm Also, there is a $50 rebate from USR if you buy before October 4. We have it on good authority that this rebate will be extended through Christmas but, officially it's still a rumor. Now if you already have an x2 modem you are set. Well, except for maybe one thing; USR discovered a bug in the modem software. The symptoms of this bug are connection rates lower than expected and frequent disconnects. Don't worry, though, since USR has a web page where you can download the fix for free. If you buy a new modem now, you probably won't have to worry about this. Go to the NetSource FAQs from the members only web page to get the web link for the software bug fix or http://x2.usr.com/update for a shortcut. Customer Survey We recently selected customers at random to participate in the customer survey. If you received the e-mail notification, please take the time to submit a survey. It is very easy since you can fill out the survey on-line in a few minutes and submit it right there. This is our third survey and we always get good input and have used this input to make improvements to our services. Once all the survey results are in, we will summarize these for you on-line at the members only page. This should be done by the end of October. Thanks in advance for your participation. Good Attendance at Free Classes NetSource has offered free classes over the last couple of weeks. These classes have been well attended. The first class covered e-mail basics and the second class covered web page authoring basics. The classes have practically been standing room only! This surprised us because the last time we offered the free classes, no one showed up :-( . We will continue to offer free classes in the basics and will give you more notice so you can plan to attend, actually the next one on email is 10/17/97 at 3:30 pm. You can find out times by looking at the NetSource http://www.ntsource.com/newnet/members/membersonly.html web page. Also, we are planning more advanced classes in some of the Mircrosoft products. There will be a charge for these classes, however. The first class will be an introduction to Windows NT. We are open to suggestions on what classes you would like taught; so far we are planning on Excel, Computer Basics, Word, Photo Shop, Paint Shop Pro, Ftp, HTML Programming, Java, and NT. We want to offer and teach what you would like to learn so please don't hesitate to give us your feedback, it must be computer related though. And no talking during class :) NetSource Partners with SimplyFine (R), Inc. NetSource has found an excellent company to partner with to offer our customers and the general public outstanding products at unbelievable prices and support. Did I mention support. The company is SimplyFine, Inc. and is a local company in Naperville, Illinois. SimplyFine has a mail order business with over 65,000 computer products with free deliveries. A story about support... We recently had to do some maintenance on our main server because we could tell the hard disk was about to go. We called SimplyFine and within the hour they were at our office not only with the hard disk but with the support we needed as well. SimplyFine will stock the NetSource store with products. They will provide computers, modems, software, cables, toner, ink, and other computer supplies right here in our store. If you are thinking about a new computer for Christmas, give us and SimplyFine a try. You will get low prices and great support. They sell name brands computers as well as custom built. Currently in Stock in Naperville Office -- 56K US Robotics Sportster Internal Modems $195.90, and 56K USRobotics Voice Faxmodem $219.99, and Front Page 97 $128.99. We will be getting toner for HP printers very soon. We will have a page up soon with our inventory. New Network Status Reports On-line As the NetSource system grows and gets more sophisticated, other performance parameters get more interesting. NetSource has added a couple of new system status measurements for on-line viewing. The first is a monitor of network Internet bandwidth usage. You can see a rolling average of the percentage of Internet bandwidth being used throughout the day. It seems to range from a few percent during the middle of the night to about 15% during peak periods in the day. As you can see, NetSource has a lot of reserve bandwidth for growth. We like to keep it that way so that the service always performs well. Second, we added new components to the system status page. For example, you can now see the status of power at the Naperville and Lisle POPs among other things. New Features/Services NetSource is always adding new features to it's service. Of course, we already talked about adding local phone numbers across Chicagoland and about adding 56K technology. We don't have room here to go into detail but just look at the list of other new features below. - Local dial-in phone numbers across Chicagoland. - 56K modem support. - Customer on-line FAQs from the members only web page - Free Internet software pre-configured for NetSource services. - Expanded hardware and software sales in the store. - Network bandwidth monitor on-line. - Improved backup systems that keep services running. - Personal but public customer ftp sites. - Plus we have a few more in the making but not ready for announcement. Small Business Solutions NetSource has always provided services for business, however, we are now enhancing these services and are focusing on solutions for small businesses. Small businesses have special communication problems and needs that NetSource can meet with specially designed services. NetSource has a variety of solutions available to small companies that actually reduce their current communication expenses. Email is one of the most important services for small companies. If you have a small company with multiple dial in accounts to do email, you should talk with us about alternatives. Other possibilities are web hosting and low cost dedicated lines and more. If you have a small business that is ready for big business communication services at affordable prices, give us a call. Quarter 4 Billing In-progress We recently sent out the bills for the fourth quarter and October. We will be doing credit card processing this week. If you pay by credit card and need an invoice, just send an e-mail to billing@ntsource.com and we will send you one. If you are currently paying by check and would prefer to pay by credit card, just let us know. It may be easier for you to do the credit card; no check to write you know. We are now accepting American Express credit cards if you would like to use them. What some of our customers are doing. NetSource likes to help out local businesses, especially when they are doing business with us. Here is what some of our business customers are up to. You can find these companies on our http://www.naper.com business web page. SimplyFine, Inc (http://www.simplyfine.com) is getting ready to put their computer supply catalog on our system and hopefully it will be ready before November. Naper Nuts and Sweets (http://www.naper.com/napernuts) will have a shopping cart program on our system this month. Another one of our customers is getting ready to bring an Internet Cafe to downtown Naperville, right on the riverwalk. I can't wait for this. We have several churches who are putting web pages up. Leonardos Pizza (http://www.naper.com/leonardos.pizza) is getting ready to sell their Stuffed Spinach Pizza in local grocery stores in the frozen food section, it will be labeled Leonardos of Naperville, Il. If you are new to Naperville, you have to try their pizza, it is the best in town. (Okay Jim send me my money for the plug :) As some of you may already know, I lost a good neighbor (http://www.anewambiance.com) a new ambiance - the complete interior design service who moved from my building. They are now located above the Hallmark store at 30 1/2 Jefferson, [their] new shop is worth stopping in to see. Check out the butterflies on their web page, they are not painted, they are the real things, gorgeous. I also lost a good neighbor from the building on the other side of me, Steinbocks. (was it [my] breathe? hehe) Steinbocks is now on Main street at 200 North (http://www.naper.com/steinbocks). FYI - New Customers Welcome to all the new customers since Quarter 3. Here are a couple pieces of information you may want to know about our processes that we have mentioned on previous newsletters. We send out surveys once a quarter and use the feedback to improve our processes. The survey results are posted on our web page at http://www.ntsource.com/newnet/members/surveys/survey.html. If we have a system problem you should know about, we will post it on our members only page. If we know you can't get to the members only page (for example if there is a major power outage), we put the information on our voice mail at the office (630) 778-1212. NetSource supports (http://www.naper.com) naper.com, a web site for the local community. With this site you can post items for sale (it's free), advertise your business, post notices, and see popular community links. We have a very sophisticated backup system that will protect your email and home directories. When we need to bring down our main system, we first move all critical process to our backup server. This allows you to login as usual. Your only visible sign that this has happened is your old email is missing. You can still send email out but the old email is stored on tapes and we bring it back when the primary system returned to service. The switch is practically invisible to our customers. Who works at NetSource? Ginger does billing as well as signs people up for access. Matt does the majority of customer support, when he is out of the office, Pat or Bob will answer the technical questions. Leslie is new to the company and mainly works on web pages and is getting pretty good at graphics design. Lisa works on web pages also. Bob is our consultant behind the scenes that improves the quality of service on a daily basis. Pat, that's me, is the president of the company and does business sales as well as runs the classes on Saturday afternoons. Amit works for us part time as our graphics expert and web page designer. Well that's it for now, this newsletter is longer than we planned. As we said, a lot has happened at NetSource in the last few months and we wanted to bring you up to date on what we're doing. Pat Vanderford pav@ntsource.com SimplyFine is a registered trademark of SimplyFine, Inc.