Dear Valued Mohawk Dial-up Customer;

If you do *not* dial into Mohawk for your internet you can ignore this message. There are *no* changes to email nor websites upcoming.

If you *do* dial into Mohawk, there are two minor changes you will need to make sometime before September 1.

Let me explain. Mohawk will be upgrading our dial-up service with new 'burst' technology. Everybody wants faster internet, but not everybody wants broadband and its problems and expense. So we have come up with an improvement in performance for your dial-up at *no* additional cost to you! We can not make telephone transmissions faster, but we can pack more data into the same speed, which will give you a noticable improvement in overall performance. To do this we will have to abandon some old equipment and implement some new technology. We have made every effort to minimize the impact on you, in fact there are only two small changes you need to make.

If you *are* comfortable making changes to your internet settings on your computer, you can make these changes at any time before September 1 with the following instructions.

If you are *not* comfortable making changes, then please wait to make the changes until you have a Mohawk staff member on the phone to help you. Staff is available *weekdays* from 8:30am till 1pm starting on Tuesday, August 9. Please do *not* call before Tuesday! You may leave a message at any time requesting a call back, but no staff will be available for dial-up change-over help until Tuesday August 9. Please take note of this because we do not want you to become frustrated when you can not make contact with us before Tuesday August 9.

Both the old system and the new system will be operational throughout August. Take your time. There is no great urgency to make changes until you are ready. This document will also appear in our HOW TO GUIDE section of our website www.mohawk.net

TASKS:
You will be changing your dial-up phone number.
You will be adding the characters ' @mohawk.net '
to your dial-up user name only. (no spaces.)
INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. print out this document and keep it handy.
  2. find your Mohawk Dialer.
    3. Depending on your version of windows or mac o/s, the dialer could be in one of several places. Early windows users can look in... MY COMPUTER > CONTROL PANEL > DIAL UP NETWORKING XP users will find the Mohawk dialer in... START > SETTINGS > NETWORK CONNECTIONS You *might* find an icon on your desktop which calls itself Mohawk, but be sure that it is the actual dialer and not just a shortcut to the real dialer. If it is a shortcut you may be able to use it to get to your dialer, but you will need to make the changes to the dialer itself and not to the shortcut.
  3. click the lesser (right button) used button on your mouse.
  4. a list will pop up, at the bottom find PROPERTIES
  5. click on PROPERTIES. Mac users will need to do the equivalent.
  6. change the dial-up phone number.
    7. For Connecticut 860 area users the new number is... CT CORNWALL 860 419-0226 For New York Dutchess County and Amenia users... NY AMENIA 845 789-4011 For other areas, there is a table at the end of this document for all access numbers in Connecticut and New York. Use the number which is closest to you and which is not a toll call. Click on OK. This will take you back to the dialer screen.
  7. click on your 'user name'. Make a note of your existing user name and write it here:______________________.
  8. move your cursor to the end of the existing name being careful not to delete it. (oops? then re-enter the name you made note of above.)
  9. add the characters shown here in brackets [ @mohawk.net ].
  10. Do *not* include the brackets themselves nor any spaces. Example the user "mohawk" would become mohawk@mohawk.net.

> That's it. Save your dialer with OK and go ahead and dial-up. There are *no* changes to your email settings, your email address, or anything else.

IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE... you can revert to your old settings until you can get help from the Mohawk Staff.

Once we have made the conversion of all users to the new setup, we will begin the process of implementing the 'burst' technology. That change will not happen before October, so breath easy, you are all set for stable dial-up internet for the foreseeable future.

Some notes:

Because we have abandoned an older piece of equipment in both Connecticut and New York, you may see some slightly different messages as you log on. The older, slower, machines are going to the great dumpster in the ... ( I don't really know where the great dumpster is, but they are going there! ) ... sky. And with their departure we hope to have shed one trouble spot in our service to you. You may well see some speed and reliability improvement from that change alone.

Remember, unlimited usage is *not* the same as continuous usage. The new system is able to time out abusers and will do so. Please use the internet as much as you want whenever you want, but don't just leave it on when you are not really using it. Thank you.

Another benefit of our new system is that we are now intertwined with most of the nation, so if you are going somewhere out of this area, simply ask us for an access number near where you will be! There is *no* additional charge.

That is all. Thank you for being a Mohawk Dail-up Customer, and thank you for your patience as we make these small changes in our on going effort to improve our services.

Philip Truax philip@mohawk.net

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED...
I will explain some technical stuff with anybody who cares to read on.
Adding the '@mohawk.net' to your dial-up name is necessary for us to become a 'realm'. Since we are now using a nationwide system rather than older dedicated circuits, we have to be able to differentiate our customers from all the zillions of others out there. This is done by creating 'realms'.

Since you are a mohawk.net customer and want all your mail etc to come to mohawk.net for delivery to you, we have made the switch to becoming a realm and the logical name for the realm is mohawk.net. When you log on, our equipment will strip off the @mohawk.net so everything remains exactly the same as it was before.

The 'burst' technology is a software compression technology. It will pack a lot more data into the same dial-up connection. Some things, like binary downloads, are already compressed and there will be little change in download times for such files, but 90% of your internet data is not compressed. So surfing, email, and most of your internet requests will be much quicker.
Questions? Write support@mohawk.net Thank you again. -Philip
TOLL FREE ACCESS POINT PHONE NUMBERS.
Pick one that is a local call from your computer.

Connecticut Numbers:


New York Numbers: