NewsLetter January 2004 Happy New Year! BRRRRR! Guess what's here again? But this little newsletter should warm the cockles of your hearts. Though much emphasis has been placed of late on our expanding telephone services (see below) we have several very nice additions to announce for our Internet customers, particularly Dialup customers. Dialup was our foundation, and remains the basic workhorse of the Internet and the core of our business. We never forget you! This issue's topics are: "SoVerNet Accelerator"—Speed up your browsing, your email, and more Domain Registrations Now Available Directly Through SoVerNet New Spam/Anti-virus Filters—Like 'em? SoVerNet Telephone Service Expands—We're everywhere! A Special Offer For You from VERMONT Magazine National Roaming—Take us with you (someplace warm). SoVerNet’s ACCELERATOR For those of you who are loyal to dialup or who just can't get DSL, we offer our "Dialup Accelerator," which can speed up web browsing and email as much as 5 times over your regular dialup connection. The acceleration is provided by software that you'll need to download to your machine (we'll supply you with the download site). The software compresses certain types of data to make most webpages, and email delivery, much speedier. Increase the fun of your dialup connection! While the actual transmission speed will not increase, the software's ability to compress data means that more is delivered to your screen, making the loading of webpages much quicker. The technology stuffs more data into the same packet to give dialup customers the next best thing to broadband. While the visual quality of compressed data may be lower than non-compressed data, the increased speed allows you to browse faster than ever before. And the level of compression is even adjustable so that you can strike a balance to your liking. Pretty clever! SoVerNet's Dialup Accelerator is available as an Additional Service, for $2.00/month, and qualifies for bundled discounts. It is available for PC's and for Mac OS X version 10.2 and newer, with the Safari web browser. We offer this service with our usual 30-day Money-Back Guarantee. And, there's more! SoVerNet's Accelerator comes with a free Pop-up killer, and an email accelerator. Please go to our Accelerator page to read more about this service and to the Tools login to sign up. top REGISTER YOUR DOMAIN Through SoVerNet And SAVE! Whether for business purposes or personal use, registering a domain is the first step in setting up your own, individualized, email address or website. We've always offered domain hosting and a wide variety of domain-related services—but, until now, we've not offered domain registrations ourselves. In affiliation with TUCOWS/OpenSRS, SoVerNet is now an official "Registration Service Provider." You can register your domain directly through SoVerNet and then order the services—such as virtual web addressing or email services—to go along with it. All your domain-related needs under one roof! We even have a Domain Management webpage where you can manage your domain information. The best part is that our pricing is considerably lower than the major national domain registrars. Registration starts as low as $20.00 for a single year and drops as low as $15.00/year based on the number of years. If you've already registered a domain through someone else, you can transfer registrations to SoVerNet at any time so that you can take advantage of our lower pricing when renewal time rolls around. If you are interested in registering a new domain with SoVerNet, or transferring an existing domain to SoVerNet, visit our Hosting webpage: where you can learn about our registration service, and other related domain services. to SPAM & ANTI-VIRUS FILTERS—How 'bout those spam/virus filters? We are now a few weeks into our new spam and virus filtering and the comments have been very positive. We hear from many customers that it is very refreshing to open a mailbox that is mostly free of unwanted mail. As we said in our announcement on 11/24, we added spam and virus filtering for every customer on December 1, 2003. You can still read the announcement on our website. Our Basic, or default, level of spam filtering has been designed to provide excellent protection with a low risk of filtering legitimate mail, and you need only sit back and let them work. If you find spam getting around those filters, there are stronger pre-defined settings you can choose and advanced configurations within each setting. We have a SpamFAQ on the web to guide you through the process of customizing these filters to work the way you want them to. And, since spam and viruses are ever-changing, we'll be continuing to tweak our controls and to fine-tune the balance between effective filtering and efficient delivery of the email you want. top TELEPHONE SERVICE EXPANDS!—We're everywhere! Well, almost. Remember, SoVerNet is no longer just an Internet provider, we're now another choice for voice in the State of Vermont. Our telephone services are now available to businesses and residences throughout Vermont, with the exception of the areas covered by the Independent Telephone Companies. In other words, if Verizon is there, we're there too! And our service bundles, with savings to 20%, are available throughout the same area, too. Give us a call, or visit our Services page top   VERMONT MAGAZINE—A Special Offer For SoVerNet Customers! Vermont Magazine approached us with an offer we thought you might like: they are offering SoVerNet subscribers 2 free issues with trial subscriptions. If you wish to continue your subscription, send back the invoice with payment for a year's subscription (6 issues). You'll have 8 issues in all, for the price of 6. If you don't want to continue, just send back the invoice with "CANCEL" written across it—no obligation and the first 2 are yours to keep. We hope you enjoy this special offer, and are hoping to bring you other special opportunities as we find those we think you'll like. Let us know your thoughts. Click here for the subscription signup page. top   NATIONAL ROAMING—Take us away with you! Our National Roaming dialup access means that you no longer need to suspend your account when leaving for warmer climes over the winter, and you don't have to have a second ISP account at your out-of-Vermont location. Take your SoVerNet account with you! Look on our website for a local number (give us a call if you don't see one—there may be a new number that hasn't made it to the list yet), and setup instructions. Every dialup account has 2 hours of National Roaming included, and if you need more than that (up to 300 hours/month), it can be arranged. Bear in mind that our new roaming service also means hat you do not have to cancel your SoVerNet dialup service when moving out of the area. There's no need to change providers if you can take it with you! Talk to our Call Center about special offers for customers moving out of the local calling area. See the roaming page, or call us at 877 877-2120.   That's it folks! Bundle up, stay warm, drive safely, and enjoy the rest of the winter. "Happy New Year!" top