Fixed Wireless Update
Date Posted: October 21, 2005
BTInet Fixed Wireless Subscribers,
Thank you for choosing to use BTInet’s Fixed Wireless service as your high-speed Internet solution. We know that some of our users have been experiencing intermittent problems with their service and we would like to take this time to update everyone on additional changes we are implementing to help improve the quality of your wireless Internet experience.
What we are doing.
We are currently in the process of adding new tower locations in north and south Bismarck. The main benefit of these new locations will be the additional coverage and improved signal quality that they will provide to our existing customers. Once these towers are up, we plan to contact those individual customers who may be able to utilize these new towers to schedule a no-cost changeover.
We are also making changes to our management software, which will allow us to better control the distribution of customer radios on each tower access point. This will help stabilize the performance of each customer radio by preventing the overloading of any individual access point.
A known cause of performance problems on our system has been Internet file sharing through P2P networks (e.g. Napster, Kazaa, Gnutella, Morpheus, Limewire, Bit Torrent, etc.), where customers knowingly allow others on the Internet to access or “share” files on their PC, such as music or video files. We have tried several different things to continue to allow Internet file sharing while minimizing its effect on the system. While these changes have met with some success, overall system performance is still negatively affected to varying degrees. As a result, effective immediately, we will no longer allow Internet file sharing activity of any kind on our wireless service. Any P2P activity we identify will result in immediate suspension, and possible termination, of your account. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause some customers; however, it is a decision that is in the best interest of the majority of our users. Please note that this will not affect customer’s ability to download non-P2P files from the Internet.
What you can do.
It should also be noted that certain viruses on a customer’s PC can cause activity that may make it appear that the customer is taking part in a P2P network, causing us to suspend their service. To help avoid this from happening, we highly recommend that you install anti-virus software on all your PCs, and keep the software current with frequent software updates.
Finally, we ask that customers no longer attempt to reset their radios (by placing a paperclip or other device in the small hole of the SmartBridge) without being asked to do so by a BTInet employee. Unsupervised reset of the radio may cause it to lose its association with the tower completely, resulting in a chargeable service call from one of our technicians to restore its connection. It is still acceptable to power cycle the radio by unplugging electrical power if necessary.
Thank you again for your patience as we continue to improve the service we offer. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Each of our customers is very important to us, and we want to assure you that we are committed to providing you with the most reliable wireless Internet access possible.
BTInet Management
