This is a hot subject right now and one that is prominently on the minds of many as a bill about YOUR online privacy is being pushed through Congress right now.

A panel of the U.S. House of Representatives has pushed through a piece of legislation that would require ISPs to keep logs about your online activities for a full year.

In storing the logs longer, the chances are higher for invasions of privacy. This could include something as simple as a lawyer filing a lawsuit and requesting a customer’s logs. The issue with this is that there is already a way that  law enforcement agencies can have ISPs retain logs for actual criminals for 90 days, giving enough time for a search warrant.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that this bill will essentially “help the government identify the web sites we visit and the content we post online,” and “treats every Internet user like a potential criminal.” The EFF also warns that the bill “represents a clear and present danger to the online free speech and privacy rights of millions of innocent Americans.”

What can I do?

The EFF has provided a way for you to contact your Representative and ask them to oppose bill H.R. 1981.

It seems that Google has made a deal with Best Buy and major cell phone companies to offer their Nexus S Android phones for free with a two year contract.

This is only happening today, August 3rd of 2011, and is likely a deal Google put together to try to lock people into contracts with an Android phone just before the release of the new iPhone.

You can find this deal by going to Google and clicking the link under the search.

Do you think this is a smart move on Google’s part to take some of Apple’s potential new iPhone users? Or do you think this is just a gimmick and people will still flock to the new iPhone?

photo credit: laihiu

(Yuba City, CA)–  Succeed.Net, Yuba City’s largest Internet service provider, has acquired the subscriber base and assets of Wireless ISP Pulsar Communications, Inc. of Oroville, CA (www.pulsarco.com).  This is Succeed.Net’s 7th acquisition of a local ISP competitor and will significantly expand Succeed.Net’s rural wireless coverage areas.  By combining our wireless internet access networks we will expand our wireless coverage to over 100 square miles to include areas such as Rancho Cordova, Sacramento, up highway 99 to Oroville, and I-5 from Dunnigan to Orland, Marysville east to Oregon House and Penn Valley, and most areas in between.

“Merging the two wireless networks will not only greatly expand our coverage area, it will also allow us to consolidate equipment on towers we already share and allow us to reduce interference and have more control over service quality for this region,” said Robert Lavelock, Owner of Succeed.Net.

“We plan to immediately begin to audit, organize, and upgrade Pulsar operations by upgrading Pulsar users wireless networks and access points, move them to an online billing system where they can view and pay their accounts online, migrate them new state of the art email servers,  and open Pulsar customers to our existing services portfolio that includes new email accounts at domains we already own such as marysville.net, orland.net, willows.net, etc.” said Mr. Lavelock.

“This acquisition is also coinciding with the deployment of our new Gigabit fiber mesh network to greatly enhance speeds and reliability to remote parts of our network and our ultra high speed business Fiber offerings across California,” said Mr. Lavelock.

“We plan to continue to acquire other local IT businesses, while still maintaining the great support feeling that you get by being able call and ask for people by name.  We never want that to change.  Great customer service is what separates us from the big cold corporate machines,” said Mr. Lavelock.

Succeed.Net provides California statewide dial-up, DSL, T1, T3, VOIP, VPN, Metro Ethernet, Fiber up to 1Git+, as well as a large Northern California fixed wireless network.  Succeed.Net also provides computer service, repair and IT management for local businesses.

For more information visit: http://www.pulsarco.com or http://www.succeed.net

It’s official- Netflix is now allowing its customers in the US to choose the quality of their video streaming. This allows customers who have bandwidth restrictions to continue to use their Netflix service more without having to constantly worry about hitting or surpassing their bandwidth limits.

To enable this, you will need to go to the Manage Video Quality page in your account.

From there, you can select Good quality (up to 0.3 GB per hour), which is the lowest setting.

The lowest setting for Netflix Bandwidth

Hopefully, this will allow you to continue to enjoy the Netflix Instant streaming service without having to worry as much about bandwidth limitations.

If you’re using the Good Quality on Netflix Instant, how is it working for you?

This is becoming a more common question as more ISPs are adding monthly bandwidth limitations. People need to be able stay under their bandwidth limits, or else get charged for that extra bandwidth they use.

Why Netflix uses so much bandwidth

Netflix delivers movies and TV shows streaming straight to your internet-enabled device, such as a computer, PS3, Wii, etc. This streaming process uses bandwidth, which registers as data that has been downloaded. According Netflix, if you are watching an HD movie with 5.1 surround sound, you will have about 2.2 gigabytes in download in just one hour. That’s using their highest quality, no slow-downs on the network, speed.

Netflix does attempt to scale their streaming quality based on your available bandwidth and if there are any slow-downs with the network, which allows for the best video quality your connection can support. This does not, however, allow you to determine how much bandwidth you’re going to be using or how much you have used for the month already.

Why is this a problem for ISPs?

Imagine that your connection to the internet is a road. Your road merges with main roads as you get further from your connection, and finally, you hit the freeway (known as a backbone). Now, the more people on the road, the slower things are going. When everyone is coming home from work, the speed limit is 65 MPH, but you may only be going 25 MPH because of the traffic. It’s a similar concept with the internet and your speed. Netflix adds a huge amount of traffic to all of these roads, and that creates a strain for the ISPs that are carrying these backbones. Now imagine Netflix as a two-trailer semi truck completely loaded. It causes other traffic to be slow, it takes up a lot of space, and can create cracks on the road. If Netflix was in use by all of its subscribers and there were no bandwidth limits, it would be like Los Angeles during rush hour.

What can I expect from Netflix?

In terms of bandwidth, if you were to watch 60 hours of non-HD content a month, you would be at about 62 gigabytes. If all of that was the highest quality HD with surround sound, you would be at about 134 gigabytes for that month. And that doesn’t include any other downloads, web browsing, or games being played online. All of these activities use bandwidth, and it all adds up.

In terms of what Netflix plans to do about it, it is still up in the air. According to a blog post, Netflix allows users in Canada to reduce their streaming quality. This is due to the fact that Canadian ISPs have severe bandwidth limits, and this has been conflicting with the Netflix service.

When Netflix will bring this option to the US, or if they will at all, is anybody’s best guess.

photo credit: PseudoGil

First, what is Wireless Internet?

Fixed Wireless Broadband, also known as Rural Wireless Internet, is an internet technology that is delivered to the customer’s location wirelessly using the same type of technology as a wireless router.

How Wireless Internet Works

Succeed.Net’s wireless internet originates at our office with our fiber backbone to the internet. From there:

• It is sent wireless to one of our towers. There is a wireless device, known as a radio, on one tower that points to a second radio on another tower.

 

• It then jumps from tower to tower like this until it gets to your tower.

 

• On your tower, there is another radio, known as an access point, that broadcasts the internet signal.

 

• On the house, there is another wireless radio that points to tower and picks up the internet signal being broadcasted by the access point.

 

• The internet is then delivered via an ethernet (network) cable into the house, where it can plug into your computer or a router.

Here is an example of this:

The Benefits of Wireless Internet

There are numerous benefits of having wireless internet.

1. Inexpensive. Succeed.Net’s Wireless Internet is priced competitively with cable and DSL, and is much cheaper than satellite internet or T1.
2. Speed. The speed of wireless internet is on par with cable, DSL, and satellite, and much faster than T1, ISDN, or Dial Up.
3. Easy. Wireless internet is easy to use as there are no complicated user names or passwords you have to remember; it’s an Always-On connection.
4. Better. Wireless internet is better than most other technologies as it’s not tethered by cables and is available in rural areas.

Wireless vs. Satellite

Satellite is often offered in the same areas as wireless internet. It is touted as an upgrade for dial up and the better alternative to wireless, mainly because it has similar speeds and similar install to wireless internet. What isn’t usually mentioned is that, although the speeds are technically the same, satellite has a much longer distance to travel before it reaches its destination. That extra time can severely affect the speed, and sometimes the speeds seem more like dial up than actual broadband service. Satellite is also, on average, $40 more expensive per month than wireless internet. Oh, and make sure you don’t spend too much time in front of the satellite dish itself.

Interested in Wireless Internet?

If you are interested in getting Rural Wireless Internet, give us a call at 530-674-4200 option 2 or email us at sales@succeed.net.

When is the PlayStation Network going to be back up?

A question everyone seems to be asking lately. The PSN originally went down April 20th and has been down since then. It seems that between April 17th and April 19th, there was a hacker that got into the network and attempted to download sensitive user information. On April 20th, the service was shut down by Sony to prevent any further attack.

Sony writes in its latest PSN update, “We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week. We’re working day and night to ensure it is done as quickly as possible.” They also wrote, “If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.”

The most recent development is a class action lawsuit has been filed against Sony on behalf of “approximately 77 million” PSN users. You can view the full complaint here.

photo credit: shagy6six6

Are you having issues with your computer? Is it telling you it’s infected? Or does it not turn on at all?

If you are having issues similar to these, there is good news. Succeed.Net, a local company in Yuba City, does computer repair and can fix your computer, too!  From virus removal, to memory upgrades, to complete system reinstalls, Succeed.Net can fix just about anything with your computer, and for just $100 in most cases!

How can I tell if I have a virus?

In order to figure this out, you will need to ask yourself a few questions:

Am I getting pop-ups?
Is there a program telling me my computer is infected?
Am I getting random websites when trying to browse the internet?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your computer could have a virus.

Give us a call at 530-674-4200 to see if we can fix your computer!

Do you live in an area with no cable or DSL? All of the Internet Service Providers you’ve called say, “I’m sorry, but you’re too far away.” Your only options are dial up or expensive satellite.

Not anymore!

Wireless Internet

If you live in an area where there is no cable or DSL, you may be able to get Succeed.Net’s Fixed Wireless Broadband. If you have line of sight to one of our towers, you could get internet with cable and DSL speeds, for more reasonable prices than satellite.

How It Works

Wireless Internet uses equipment similar to a home router, called a wireless radio. The radio is mounted to the roof of the house, similar to a satellite dish, and pointed to one of our towers. It connects to this tower wirelessly. From the radio on the roof, an ethernet cable is run into the house, where it can connect to a router or directly to a computer. On your side, you won’t notice any difference from cable or DSL. It’s an Always On connection, there’s no passwords to enter, and the speeds are very similar.

If you’re interested in getting Wireless Internet, contact us at 530-674-4200 option 2 or sales@succeed.net, or go to our Wireless Internet page to view pricing.