We are developing a new anti-spam strategy based on discussions with subscribers and the survey results, which are shown on the back page.

It is apparent there are several interest groups, each having their own preferences and attitudes towards spam. For example, businesses need to receive all their mail, but families prefer to get less spam.

Soon we will only block messages from networks dedicated exclusively to

“high scoring” spam to an archive mailbox instead of yours. This way no messages will get lost.

The best way to reduce the amount of spam in each subscriber's mailbox is to provide a solution on a case-by- case basis.

To achieve this, we are creating a “wizard” which will guide each of you through the decision making process and help find the best solution for you.

We have had quite a few problems since moving our dialup lines over to our current dialup line provider; far more than when we operated our own equipment.

To regain stability, we have decided to provide our own lines and equipment again starting around the last week in January.

It will be a welcome relief to have stable dialup access again!

We will provide you with the new access numbers once they are available.

The results are in from the Anti-spam Survey. Only 15% of the possible respondents actually took the survey, so the results may be skewed a bit.

Just over 50% felt that they receive a lot of spam and almost 50% were bothered by it. Surprisingly, only 54% said they use our spam filters. Another surprise was that

70% would prefer to lose some messages if it meant getting less spam.

35% have their own domain and most of those use their domain and Cove for email.

80% are willing to receive email only through their domain.

Only 44% were willing to change their email address to covemail.com.

It was a quiet month at the help desk.

Most calls were for account setup information.

If you ever need help, please select tech support (Option 2) if you call our main office. This

will enable you to get our dialup access numbers, email settings or our toll-free help desk number.

Please remember, our help desk team is available to you 24 hours a day and the direct, toll free number is
877-221-2116.

This was mainly a quiet month on the network.

Our dialup line provider had outages on November 21 and 22, which prompted us to provide this service ourselves again.

The new secure application

server was installed without any problems on November 18.

We are now working on a new (huge) mail server to handle the extra load, a firewall/router and a new radius server to support our dialup access service.

Are you pleased with our service? Do you know someone who is unhappy with their current Internet or 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 December for free - just by referring new subscribers.

Everybody wins!