Why Choose MV

MV Communications is a homegrown New Hampshire ISP that has been leading the way for Internet Access in this state. We incorporated as an ISP in June 1991, and the MV.COM domain name was registered in 1987 for the purpose of facilitating networking in New Hampshire.

Dialup Services

Multiple dialup pools and equipment vendors

Why do we go to the extra expense of maintaining these separate facilities? We know that not all modems work exactly the same way in all situations. Your dialup connections are affected by the kind of modem you choose, by the phone lines at your location, by the path the call takes when you call us, and by the equipment that we use. In order to give you the best connection we can, we maintain several different dialup number pools with different telephone companies, and we maintain different kinds of equipment for you to call. Our remote access server equipment includes:

• Livingston Portmaster 3 (PM3) digital access servers using Lucent-based modem hardware;

• Assured Access X1000 digital access servers using Rockwell-based modem hardware.

We have two statewide dialup pools using Brooks Fiber telephone numbers, and a third statewide single-number pool using Bell Atlantic numbers. All three pools are delivered to us over digital PRI connections using fiber optic cable from each telephone company directly to us. Most numbers support modem protocols up to V.90, as well as ISDN calls for a true digital connection.

UUCP and UNIX Shell accounts

Although these are far less popular than the more common IP accounts (which we also offer), we continue to make UUCP and UNIX shell accounts available. We know that most of you reading this probably don't much care about them, but we think you should take it as a positive sign that we are one of the few ISPs who can offer them. We do so not only because we have the technical expertise, although that's part of it, but because we understand that they meet the needs of a certain segment of our core community. Plus, these are the kinds of accounts we started with in our early days. And, finally, because the owners and staff of the company use these kinds of accounts, and we feel that we ought to be able to get them from our own company.

No Busy Signals

We make it a goal to provide excessive dialup capacity so that you rarely, if ever, get a busy signal under normal conditions. Also, we have:

• Multiple number pools. As we mention, we maintain multiple dialin number pools. If by some freak of circumstance you can not get in on one pool, there are two others to fall back on.

• Many local exchanges. We have numbers in many towns in New Hampshire, more than one of which may be local to you. If there is telephone system congestion in one exchange, as sometimes happens, you may have the option of using a different local number.

• Idle timeouts. We do reserve the right to institute automatic idle timeouts that terminate a dialup session that has not been in use for some period of time, thus we do not have the situation where users have forgotten to hang up the phone and consume resources needlessly. (Note that we do NOT consider it an abuse for a user to keep the connection alive to defeat the timeout if they need to stay connected-- the timeout is meant to work for you, not against you.)

• Ample but not unlimited accounts. Our standard dialup accounts have very high time allocations for normal use, with a very moderate charge for hourly use beyond that allocation. (Note that some ISPs do offer "unlimited" accounts, but most of them redefine the word "unlimited" so that it doesn't mean what you think. Those that don't can suffer from resource problems.) We prefer to be very up front about this situation, and we don't offer services at prices that can not sustain them.

• A policy of not overselling. We are proud that we are one of the few ISPs who stopped accepting new accounts when (in our early years) we were not able to acquire new facilities or telephone lines.

No-risk trials

When you sign up for a normal dialup account, you send us nothing until you have tried the service for up to two weeks. If you like the service, you accept it by sending in a payment (most of which is used as a deposit against usage). If you do not want to keep it, contact us to cancel it and there will be no obligation.

Our Connectivity

• Ample Bandwidth. This helps to ensure that you can reach your Internet destinations quickly, and if you provide web pages on our servers, that those pages can be accessed responsively.

• Optimal Routing. By using multiple diverse backbone connections, our equipment can choose the best path to any destination amongst these connections. (Similarly, others on the Internet can choose the best path to us.)

• Redundancy. If any one of our backbone connections experiences a failure or is down for maintenance, the others automatically take up the slack.

See our backbone connectivity.

Servers

• Multiple and redundant DNS servers.

• Multiple and redundant RADIUS authentication/accounting servers.

• Multiple web servers.

• UNIX shell server.

• Email server supporting SMTP, POP, and IMAP services. (more)

• Usenet News (has almost always been on the "top 1000" monthly most influential usenet news servers list). (more)

• Other servers including FTP and (even) gopher.

Support and Operations

MV automatically monitors all services. All servers and equipment are on battery backup UPS units to guard against brief power interruptions and fluctuations in the power supply.

All servers are on a continuing tape backup schedule so that your critical data (and ours) are recoverable to within a day-old copy in the event of a system failure.

Random Things

MV is a charter member of the ISP/C , a national ISP organization dedicated to address issues important to the independant ISP (including being active in government issues, prevention of network abuse, privacy issues, and others).

MV is a founding member of the NH ISP Association , a New Hampshire organization formed to address ISP issues on a state level.