Volume 6 Issue 6

January, 2001

DSL's Limitations in Cape Ann

We believe we should dispel some of the myths concerning DSL availability in Cape Ann.
After close to a year of hearing about DSL services being offered, it has become clear that this alternative is only feasible to a very limited portion of Cape Ann.
In fact, high-speed DSL will never be available in Rockport, Essex or Manchester. Also, it is only available to roughly one-third of Gloucester.
These limitations are caused by DSL's protocol and Cape Ann's network structure. DSL only works over copper wire. All data and voice traffic in and out of Cape Ann moves through Verizon's Central Office (CO) in Gloucester. The COs in Rockport, Essex and Manchester are connected to the Gloucester CO by fiber and not copper - no copper means no DSL.
DSL is also limited by distance. About two-thirds of Gloucester are too far away from the CO to be able to access high-speed DSL.

Anti-Spam Efforts

While it may not be readily apparent, be assured that we continue to make every effort to minimize the amount of spam that reaches your email.
At least one hour every single day is spent identifying new spammers, blocking future email from them and filing complaints to their network administrators.
The results we've seen are worth the effort. Our mailserver has blocked over 600,000 spam messages from reaching our subscribers since April!

Cove's Web Site Changes

We have made a few changes to our web site over the past month.
The web site was moved to an upgraded server on December 18.
The move was made to eliminate the sporadic periods of service unavailability we were experiencing on the old server.
We also installed a new site search function, which enables more sophisticated searches and provides better formatting of the search results - we hope you will be pleased with these changes.
If you have any ideas on how to improve our site, or any of our services, please email webmaster@cove.com.

Help Desk Notes

Most calls involved the access number change in Cape Ann. Otherwise, it was another quiet month at the Cove Help Desk.
We continue to see people try to login using their real names.
Please remember; you must login using your user name (your email address without the @cove.com part).
As always, if you have any trouble, please call us.
We're here to help you!

SysAdmin's Corner

We had a smooth transition from the old analog lines to the additional digital lines in Cape Ann.
Our network operated without incident this past month and none of our upstream providers had any significant outages to report.
In addition to moving our primary web site, we installed Sun's Java Server in anticipation of several upcoming Java development projects.
We are also evaluating several "middleware" servers to add additional support for those Java projects.

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 January 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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