* Welcome
* Coming Attractions
* New Lines
* Contacting iiNet Customer support
* iiNet/Scoop Privilege Club
* iiNet Welcomes Satcom National Databank
* Tucows
* Games News

Welcome

Hi all and welcome to iiNet's April Newsletter.

This month we welcome the MNS and Comtech clients to the iiNet fold. These clients are from the Bridgetown and Albany areas respectively. Welcome aboard!

On behalf of the Red Cross we would like to thank everyone who donated to the March NetKnock Appeal.

From all the staff here at iiNet we would like to wish you a happy and safe Easter break. Don't forget that our online and phone support centre will remain open throughout this holiday period.

Coming Attractions

iiNet will soon be adding an additional service to our explorer, Voyager and Web Affiliate accounts. Nicknamed "iiNet SMS" (Short Message Service), this service will allow you to send text messages to a mobile phone connected to Optus, Telstra or a Vodaphone via our web page. This will also work in reverse. With iiNet SMS, you will be able to send e-mails to other iiNet members from your mobile phone, while on the go, without sitting down at your computer. Keep checking our homepage for further details regarding this service.

New Lines

iiNet are continually adding more lines to our main dial in numbers. At the end of March we added a further 210 lines to our primary dial in number, 9213 1000. This takes the number of lines on this number to 4050 and the total number of iiNet dial in lines in WA to over 8000.

iiNet has just established a point of presence in Bridgetown, primarily to service clients coming to iiNet through the acquisition of MNS. This POP currently has 60 lines and a 256K link to Perth.

Both our Rockingham and Gingin points of presence are scheduled for an increase in line numbers early next month. Rockingham dial in lines will increase by 60 lines and we are working on also increasing the size of this link to handle higher bandwidth and faster data transfer. (For the more technical people it will be going from 1MB to 1.5MB DDS) The Gingin link will also be upgraded in May from 60 lines to 90 lines with a corresponding increase in link size. (From 256Kbit DDS to 512Kbit)

Contacting iiNet Customer Support

Help us to help you!

In a bid to reduce customer and staff frustration, we have compiled a checklist which will hopefully make your call to support flow more smoothly.

The first place you should go for help is of course our help pages.

http://www.iinet.net.au/help/

This is the iiNet online help desk, and you may be pleasantly surprised by what you find here. We have recently been adding to and updating these tools. These pages have clear, concise, step by step instructions and interactive screen shots where you can click through examples of the program you may be having problems with.

When you do have to call the help desk please have ready the following information.

• Your iiNet Username
• Your secret Password
• The operating system used on your computer e.g. windows 98
• The make, model and speed of your modem
• The name of the software or program you are having problems with
• The full error message, if one is applicable

Finally, iiNet can really only provide free assistance to help you connect to the Internet and with common Internet software. We often get calls for problems with word processing software, setting up an Exchange or complex network configuration queries. We do have access to consultants that can assist with these queries, but that would need to be charged.

iiNet/Scoop Privilege Club

So far the month of April has been nothing less than thrilling, with the launch of Scoop's online ticketing system allowing iiNet/Scoop Privilege Club members to book tickets to some of Perth's biggest events via the web. Tickets to the Andrea Bocelli concert went on sale on Thursday April 6.

I'm sure everyone will love this new ticketing service (no more hanging on the telephone or standing in queues) and if you have any suggestions, Scoop staff are always eager to hear them. Please contact them via email at scoop@scoop.com.au

Visit http://www.scoop.com.au/club/ticketannounce.shtml for more information on how to use this new service.

The offer of free membership to the iiNet/Scoop Privilege Club expires on the 30th April 2000. To take advantage of this privilege club, go to the URL: www.scoop.com.au/iinet/ now!

Please see the end of this newsletter for some of this months iiNet/Scoop Privilege Club offers or go to http://www.scoop.com.au/club/ for further details.

iiNet Welcomes Satcom National Databank

Did you know how easy it is to do online company searches? How about checking previous land sale prices before buying? Think of the time and money you could be saving!?!

With Satcom National Databank this is all possible! iiNet is pleased to announce the fruition of an alliance partnership with Satcom National Databank. Take the link to Satcom from the 'Featured Site' section of the iiNet home page, or point your web browser at:

http://www.natdata.net/iinet/

TUCOWS

For a number of years iiNet has mirrored Tucows, The ultimate collection of Windows shareware. In the last year Tucows has expanded to include:

Games
Tukids
Linuxberg
PDA Central
Music
Macintosh
Themes

iiNet mirrors these Tucows sites and updates them more than three times per day to ensure they are fresh. The sites are hosted here in Perth on the iiNet network so you are assured of fast downloads. The server has just been upgraded and is delivering excellent results. Go to http://tucows.iinet.net.au/ to see for yourself.

Games News

It has been a busy month on the iiNet game servers. Counterstrike Beta 6 was released for the ever-popular Half Life game. This has raised an opportunity for the Halflife game server to be upgraded to run Counterstrike. The iiNet Counterstrike server can be found at halflife.iinet.net.au More news on this upgrade later.

Also this month, iiNet has introduced a Quake III Fortress server. Quake III Fortress is reminiscent of the old classic Team fortress for Quake1, but with today's Graphics and 3D Effects.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Newsletter, we hope it has been of value.

This newsletter was put together by Jody Morris, Chris Lim, Chris Brown, Neshka Erbel, David MacPhail, John Lindsay, Nathan Thomas, Justin Lowe and Kim Davies.

For further information on any of these offers or if you are a member and wish to book your tickets now, visit: http://www.scoop.com.au/club/entertainment