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The following was read by Brian Becker at the City Council Meeting on 7/19/2010:
My name is Brian Becker and I own and operate Poplar Bluff Internet, dba semo.net, at 1877 N Westwood Blvd.
This afternoon at the Municipal Utilities Advisory Board it was voted by the members to recommend to you this evening to end Open Access. This is all predicated on the false assumption that Open Access is costing the City money.
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The following was read at the Poplar Bluff City Council meeting during Citizen Input on July 6th, 2010.
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My name is Brian Becker, I own Poplar Bluff Internet also known as semo.net. A month ago I stood before City Council asking for action. It’s now been 49 days of being prevented by City Cable to sign up new customers and in several instances over the past month, even lose the ones I already have.
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One of the factors that sets our company apart is our support department. After each trouble ticket with our support team, our customer is sent a survey by email. I am constantly amazed at the number of high praises our team members get (not because they don’t deserve it but because human nature’s desire to be more vocal over frustrations one would expect frustration to dominate the responses).
Though we sometimes get frustrated responses, the overall majority are wonderful praise of our staff.
Over the past week, our team dealt with over 200 customer issues and 19 completed the survey for us. Below are the scores given in all 19 surveys and following that are the messages that accompanied the scores (there were no negative responses this week).
Ratings:
|
Jerry 2 Excellents 4 Goods |
Josh 2 Excellents 1 Good |
Justin 1 Good |
Stefan 4 Excellents 4 Goods |
Bill 1 Good |
Reviews:
| Bill/Jerry: 639729 I bought a new laptap, not able to log into my e-mail or internet. So took it to semo.net. It was fixed. Thank you. Stefan/Jerry: 696509 Josh: 697591 Stefan: 697702 Stefan: 697851 Jerry: 698113 Josh: 698271 Stefan: 698294 |
[Disclaimer: the following is solely the opinion and perspective of Brian Becker]
On May 14th, I was sent a letter from Bill Bach, General Manager of City Cable. The letter stated that my company was exceeding the 8meg bandwidth allotment per the 2001 city ordinance. For that reason, semo.net could not sign up new customers until a new rate was negotiated. Within hours I made a reasonable and fair offer for the overage so that our company could continue doing business and simultaneously work with the City Council to update the old ordinance. My offer was ignored.
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Semo.net has already received more than 70 copyright violation notifications pertaining to our users this year.
The illegal uploading, downloading, copying and/or distribution of copyrighted works are serious offenses that carry with them the risk of substantial monetary damages and, in some cases, criminal prosecution. Copyright infringement also violates the semo.net Rules & Regulations and could lead to suspension of your Internet account. Read the rest of this entry »
In times of economic hardship, it is more important than ever to keep track of your finances. There are a lot of free tools and applications available for budgeting, bill pay and financial management. A very important aspect that is often overlooked is the ability to check your credit score online any time you like. Companies like FreeCreditReport.com grant you one free credit report per year, but you are left in the dark the other 11 months unless you want to pay a fee to view your score.
CreditKarma.com lets you to shed some light on your credit – absolutely free! You can check your credit rating on the Credit Karma website an unlimited number of times, without any hidden fees or obligations. As an added incentive, Credit Karma states that checking your credit rating on their site does not negatively affect your credit score! Read the rest of this entry »
Below is a press release describing semo.net’s attempts to secure USDA broadband stimulus funding to make high-speed access available in our area; an area which the USDA has decided is not remote enough to qualify.
USDA TILTING AT WINDMILLS: LITTLE GUY EXPOSES USDA STIMULUS BLUNDER
Brian Becker owns a small Internet Service in Southeast Missouri started in 1995. Becker has documents to show that the USDA, responsible for doling out billions for Rural Broadband, has contradicted both itself and Congress. Most are skeptical at first, but a few minutes with him and you realize that $7.2B stimulus dollars hinge on one word.
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As a college student, I find it increasingly difficult to stay organized. Keeping up with assignments, homework, due dates and various other stress-inducing factors can be a serious headache. I’ve tried several different organizational methods, from calendars to online document storage, but nothing ever seemed centralized enough to meet my needs.
Enter Soshiku. It might sound like a variety of sushi, but there is nothing fishy about this web application.
Over the summer of 1995, I was working on a project with Jerusalem Perspective (JP) magazine to develop an interactive CD that would showcase their magazine. I first heard about the “World Wide Web” that summer, but living in technology-locked southeast Missouri, I couldn’t grasp the WWW concept and certainly didn’t know how to access this “Internet.” I had an account on CompuServe (and several other bulletin boards) but we all paid by the minute for the long distance phone access over a 9600 baud modem (9.6k).
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Tiger Direct has 100 Gifts for Under $100, including:
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For gamers, the Playstation 3 “slim” model is now $299, and includes a high-definition Blu-Ray player.