Volume 6 Issue 3

October, 2000

V.92 Features

We will be upgrading our Lucent Digital 56k V.90 modems to the new V.92 standard within the next few months.
This new standard provides several useful improvements over the current V.90 standard.
The most important new feature, Modem on Hold, works with the phone company's call waiting service and enables you to answer an incoming call for up to 16 minutes without dropping your modem connection. This feature effectively removes any need for a dedicated modem line.
The Quick Connect feature will reduce your connect time from roughly 20 seconds to less than 10 seconds.
The PCM Upstream feature will increase your upload speeds from about 33.6 kbps to up to 48 kbps. Lucent also plans on adding improved compression techniques to improve download speeds.
We will keep you posted as more information becomes available.

Ten Digit Dialing

Eastern Massachusetts is getting four new area codes!
As a result, you will need to dial the area code and number - even for a local call - starting April 2, 2000.
Ten digit dialing will also affect your modem calls to us, so you will need to modify your modem's dialing setting within the next six months.
We will make instructions on how to change your modem's dialing setting available in a future newsletter and on a web page linked off of our Help Page in the near future.

Free Web Sites

Did you know that all Cove subscribers are entitled to a free web site?
You can present your club, hobby, or just about any other interest on your own personal web site.
Starting and maintaining your own web site is easy. We provide very user-friendly tools which allow you to upload and modify your web pages from your browser.
To start your own web site, just contact us! We will set up your web space and provide you with your own special web password, so you can access your site for editing. We also create a link to your web site on our Subscribers Pages page, which is linked in our Community Section.

Help Desk Notes

It was another quiet month at the Cove Help Desk.
We were able to help several subscribers improve their connections to our network, resulting in consistently better connects and faster speeds.
If you are having trouble connecting to our network, please call us!
We can suggest many solutions to poor modem performance if we know about your current equipment and how it's set up.

We're here to help you!

SysAdmin's Corner

The Cove network operated without any incidents last month and none of our upstream providers had any significant outages to report.
In addition to the new e-commerce server, we are developing two new dedicated servers; one for streaming audio and video and another UNIX server to support FrontPage extensions. These two new servers will share the ever-increasing load with our existing NT servers.
We are eagerly waiting for Lucent to provide their V.92 upgrade.

Subscriber Referral Program

Are you pleased with our service? Do you know someone who is unhappy with their current Internet/On-line service?
Why not do them and yourself a favor?
Just recommend our service. If they subscribe, we'll give you a free month of access!
They will appreciate your advice and you'll save a little money.
Again this month, over a dozen subscribers are getting their access in October for free - by referring new subscribers.

Everybody wins!

Internet Training

Have you seen our new web-based training packages?
They are convenient, up-to-date, and very inexpensive.
Visit this website at:
www.courses.cove.com
You can now even take introductory Internet and general computer use courses for free! Just visit our Help Page for access.

What's New at the Cove is a monthly publication of Cove Communications.

Publisher/Editor, Bill Ostaski

27 Congress Street
Salem, MA 01970
(978) 741-5300
(978) 282-3399
office@cove.com

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