Providing High Speed Wireless Internet
to Iron County, Michigan
and Forest & Florence County, Wisconsin.

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Fast-Air Newsletter

Vol 2014-1     11/24/2014

Hi all,

Well, it is time for another update from Fast-Air Internet. We have continued to upgrade and update our system to give you the most reliable & consistent Internet service in the area. We still have much planned for the coming year to provide a better and faster service.

Also in this newsletter you will read of continued benefits and new features available for our customers as we enter our 12th year of providing quality internet service in the area.

This year we added 3 new towers to provide more coverage and migrate more customers to our newer equipment. We still have about one quarter of our customers on the older equipment, but as we migrate more customers to new equipment the older equipment will also be more consistent due to less load.

We will continue to add additional towers to extend our coverage and to allow us to increase our speed for all our customers.

In September we increased our bandwidth quota for each customer from 40 GB per month to 50 GB. We will continue to increase the quota as we move more people to newer equipment.

Remember, any Fast-Air customer may check their bandwidth usage at any time through our Data Usage Portal link on our website's home page. If you have not logged in yet, you will need to use the Request New Password link at the lower left section of the page. The username will be the email address we have on file for you. If you are unable to get logged in, please call the office and verify your email address.

If you use Netflix, Hulu, or other streaming-video services, you can change the video-streaming settings to use less bandwidth. This change will allow you to watch more programming from these sites and stay within your bandwidth allotment. For Netflix, log into your account at their video-streaming website, find your account settings, and under YOUR PROFILE look for Playback Settings or Player Settings. Click on this link and select the Low setting. I have tried this using a Roku box and it did not make any significant difference in picture quality and almost cut the bandwidth usage per movie in half.

The Windsor Computer Lab now provides computer and network training. The lab is on the third floor in Room 307. They have an Open Lab each Tuesday from 3pm to 8pm. It is open to the public. You can bring in your own laptop, iPad, tablet, etc., or use the computers they have there. John Hoinowski and Dave Paxton are more than glad to help anyone who comes in for instruction.

Classes are held on Thursdays between 6pm and 8pm. Below is the current schedule:

We now offer VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service. This can replace your current landline telephone. You can either get a new local number with this service, or you can choose to use your current phone number in most areas. You can get unlimited calling for both local and long distance for $27.50/month. For more information check out our website under the Services menu and VoIP Service. This VoIP service provides some great features like sending your voicemail to your email, forwarding to your cell phone, and an online portal to change settings such as call waiting, email, forwarding, and other functions.

A number of our business customers have switched to this phone system and have saved hundreds of dollars. We offer multiple lines, line hunting, international calling, and fax-from-email solutions. (This service may not yet be available to some rural customers who are using our non-line-of-site units.)

We send out invoices, system notifications, newletters, referral credits, free-month notifications and most other types of communication with you via email. Please be sure to let us know if you change your email address--simply email us at support@fast-air.net or use the Contact Us page to let us know.

If you are having problems with your Internet connection we want to know about it. Before you call about a problem, there are a few simple steps you can try to get your connection working again:

1. If you have a router, unplug the POWER cord from the back of the unit, wait 5 seconds, then reapply the power. Wait at least 1 minute for the router to completely power up before you try your connection again. Important: if you had more than one device connecting to the router, you should restart all devices. If this does not work or you do not have a router then try step 2.

2. Our power block (called a PoE) is typically mounted on the wall near the floor and near the computer or router. There is a black power cord that goes from the PoE to the power strip. Unplug the power plug from the power strip that goes to the PoE. (If you are unable to find the correct power plug, you could simply turn off the power strip; however, this may shut off your computer also.) Wait 10 seconds and then replace the power plug or turn the power strip back on. You will need to wait at least 2 to 3 minutes for the unit to power back up and reconnect to the Fast-Air system.

If you needed to perform step 2 and this did not get the connection working, you may want to retry Step 1.

If after these steps your connection still does not work, please do not hesitate to call the office at 906-265-2003.

We now have someone on call during each weekend. If you call the office and leave a message, the person on call will contact you to help with your problem.

We have added a lot of customers since the last newsletter, so I want to stress the need to run spyware removal programs. We recommend MalwareBytes be run at least once a month to keep your connection at top speed. Be sure to have it download its updates each time before you run the scan. If you don't want to have to remember to run this scan, you can purchase the licensed version which runs automatically. You can purchase it for a one time fee of $24.95 by using the 'Buy Premium' link in the upper right corner of the main screen.

Note: We now recommend Microsoft Security Essentials rather than AVG Anti-Virus for virus protection. Although newer versions of anti-virus programs check for spyware, it is still necessary to run MalwareBytes.

Links to the software packages mentioned above can be found at our website under the Help & Support - Software Links option. This is typically the simplest way to upgrade to the latest versions of these software packages.

We just want to thank you all for your continued patronage. We like rewarding our customers for their loyalty.
We will continue to give out credit for referrals and have our "free-month" drawing throughout 2015. We will pick 2 names per month. You can see a list of the winners at our website by clicking 2014 Free Month Winners. Note: All Fast-Air's Internet customers are automatically entered into each month's drawings.

We realize more and more electronic devices that use the Internet are given as Christmas gifts. So to show our appreciation to our customers, we will not be charging for any usage overages for the month of December.

We would appreciate your feedback. If you have any issues, any questions, any suggestions or comments please let us know. You can reply to this message, or use the Contact Us page at the Fast-Air website. 

Thank you for your patronage and for getting out the word to the community about our Internet service. Feel free to forward this newsletter to others or refer them to the Newsletter link under the Company menu at the Fast-Air Website.

On behalf of our staff, Mike, Joy, Michael, & Timm, we truly thank you!