🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5b1fco$7lu@dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com>, machiav@ix.netcom.com 
addresses some concerns about NEGIA...

> You did not address any of these points:

Since he did not address any of those points, perhaps I will. I am an 
employee of NEGIA, but I am posting here in my free time. Not because I 
was told to, but because I feel proud to work there.

> * LOTS of busy signals. My roommate gets busy signals all the time, and this 
> is particularly annoying with the Win95 dialer. Often he gets busy signals for 
> 10-20 minutes straight! My other friends who used NEGIA (2 have dropped now)
> also complained of this exact problem.

We have had an abnormally large number of busy signals (for us 
anyway) lately. This is a problem we are aware of and are working hard to 
alleviate. We have had new lines on order from Bell South for 
approximately three and a half weeks now, and are promised new lines 
*very* soon. Since Bell South has delayed this installation we have 
ordered three times our normal number of lines. In the future, we will 
schedule regular upgrades to prevent this problem from happening again. 
It is somewhat odd that this problem getting lines has come now that Bell 
South has begun vigorously promoting their Internet service.

> * The newsserver crashes on an almost daily basis. At least 10% of the 
> time it is impossible to receive new messages or post messages. I read a lot 
> of groups, and this is a pretty big problem

We are unaware of this problem. NEGIA is proud that we host our own news 
server rather than renting out to a service. We try our best to maintain 
it and would like to know if anyone has had any problems. Please send any 
reports of problems with our news server to helpdesk@negia.net and we 
would be more than glad to look into it. 

> * they are obsessed with startup charges. This really needs to end if they 
> want to be competitive against bigger ISPs. Most competitive ISPs do not 
> charge start up fees. In fact, the first month is generall FREE or at a 
> reduced cost.

NEGIA is happy to offer some of the most competitive rates in the 
industry. There are some services that are cheaper, but generally don't 
have as good a service. Almost all our startup fees go into upgrading our 
systems, to provide the best service that we can. 

> * Their connection to the internet is very thin. They have VERY LITTLE 
> bandwidth, and absolutely not enough for their customers. What does this mean?
> This means DRASTICALLY slower file transfers, slower use of the WWW, etc.
> I have 4 friends who use NEGIA, from various parts of Athens. I get file
> transfers approximately 20-25% faster. This includes my roommate (this, we are 
> dialing from the same physical location, we have multiple lines, but its still
> branching out from the same apt, etc).

NEGIA is proud of the fact we started with the best systems available and 
have been upgrading ever since. To my knowledge, NEGIA is the only local 
provider to start with a full T1 from day one. We run a full Sun 
Workstation and use the best modems (US Robotics Couriers). To this day, 
we only use approximately 1/3 of our total bandwidth. NEGIA is looking to 
the possibility of upgrading that with redundant links sometime in the 
future. In short, we are NOT running short on bandwidth. In fact, I often 
get the maximum transfer rate on my modem (28.8).

> * These are **SERIOUS** prodblems. None of which were addressed in your post 
> of blind support.

I hope that this has addressed some of your concerns. If you have any 
more, or would like to provide us with specific examples of any problems, 
to help us improve our service, I encourage you to write to me at 
wood@negia.net , or to helpdesk@negia.net .

> There are hordes of other problems as well. I own an internet consulting 
> company, and I have researched this topic in incredible detail. In general,
> I would LOVE to support a local ISP. However, if they aren't going to provide
> services to compete with the national ISPs, then why waste the money?

As I said, let us know of any problems and we will be happy to look 
into them. NEGIA is offering new services every day. We have recently set 
up a secure server and a Kali server to meet our users needs. If you have 
any suggestions as to services that we do not offer, that national 
providers do offer, please let us know so that we may improve our 
service. Although we don't have the resources of AT&T, we are striving to 
offer the best service possible.

Gregory Wood
Technical Support - NorthEast Georgia Internet Access