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

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Fast-Air Newsletter

Vol 2013-2     11/09/2013

Hi all,

Well, it has been less than a year since our last newsletter but I felt it was time to give everyone an update on some new improvements we have made over the summer. We have continued to invest tens of thousands of dollars in upgrades each year and will continue to try to bring you the most reliable service in the area.

Also in this newsletter you will read of continued benefits and new features available for our customers as we enter our 11th year of providing quality internet service in the area.

Since our last newsletter in March we have tripled our traffic-handling capacity and spent over $60,000 in new towers, equipment, and dataline upgrades. This is to keep our commitment to be the most reliable and consistent Internet provider in the area.

We have also added an additional data provider to provide uninterrupted internet access in the event our primary provider goes down. We are the only Internet Service in the area that has this. Providing this redundancy feature is an invaluable service for those of you who run businesses that depend on internet access.

In September we increased our bandwidth quota for each customer from 30 GB per month to 40 GB. We will continue to increase the quota as we move more people to newer equipment to maintain a more consistent speed for all customers. We also reduced our overage charge from $1.75 to $1.50 per GB, and our pre-buy rate is reduced from $1.50 to $1.00 per GB.

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. Log into your account at the video-streaming website, find your account settings, and look for Manage Video Quality or Player Settings. I have tried this on Netflix 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.

Expanded Coverage

We added an additional tower this summer and added 10 additional Access Points on our existing towers to migrate customers to newer, faster equipment. This will also allow older Access Points to perform more consistently and better handle the increased usage we continue to see on all our equipment.

We have plans to build at least two more towers next summer. We are still hoping to get coverage out by Brule Lake and to fill some gaps between Bates and Crystal Falls. We are also considering another tower in Gaastra to help continue migration to newer equipment.

We will also be adding new Access Points to our existing towers to provide higher quality internet service in the rural areas.

Coverage maps can be viewed at our website. Click on the Services tab, then click on Coverage Maps.

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 $24.95/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 have more than one device connecting to the router, you show 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 still 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 the 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 Now' button near the bottom 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 will continue to give out referral credits and will again have our "free-month" drawing throughout 2014. We will pick 2 names per month. You can see a list of the winners at our website by clicking 2013 Free Month Winners. We just want to thank you all for your continued patronage. We like rewarding to our customers for their loyalty.
Note: All Fast-Air's Internet customers are automatically entered into each month's drawings.

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 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, and Louella, we truly thank you!