[Greennet-l] No Service Friday 1-3-02. Office Closed on 1-3-02.

[GreenNet User Support]

Dear GreenNet subscribers: We have a number of announcements to make:
 
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 No Service Friday 1st March 2002.  
 Office closed on Friday 1st March 2002.
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Our Service will be down on Friday 1-3-02 from about 5am until 9pm.  We
will of course try to bring our service back on line as soon as possible
but we cannot make any guarantees that it will be back on until 9pm.  We
would ask you not to call the office as we will be working on the
technical changes all day and the system will be up and running much
more quickly if we can avoid interruption as much as possible.
There will be no downtime outside these specified times.

You will not be able to:

* Pick up emails (but you should be able to send mail out). Incoming
messages will be queued on a backup server and delivered when the main
server is back on line.  You will not lose any mail.

* Look at Web mail, as this will be offline

* Access websites that we host, either by a browser program or to update a
site via FTP. However the web server should come back on line first so
downtime on this will be less.

You will be able to:
 
* Connect to the Internet.  This will be completely unaffected.

* Send email.  This should be fine in the majority of cases. If you
connect to GreenNet via another ISP, ADSL connection or leased line you
may not be able to send messages.

 
The reason for the downtime is that we are in the middle of making a huge
number of service improvements.  This phase is to locate our mail server
and new web server in a network operations centre. The network operations
centre is directly connected to the Internet Backbone meaning faster email
download times.  It has 24/7 protection from power cuts because it has a
back up generator.  It also benefits from two high speed internet
connections, removing the single failure point we have at the moment.
Websites hosted with us will benefit too, downloads will be faster and
updates will appear immediately.  We also hope to be able to offer
streaming audio and video services.

We realise this will cause a great deal of inconvenience and we
wholeheartedly apologise but with moving core services and servers the
disruption is inevitable.  However it will mean a faster and more reliable
service after the move has been made and we are sure that you will be
pleased with the results.
 
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 The number change.
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Thanks to all of you who have made the number change; the move has gone
very smoothly indeed! You should be benefitting from fewer engaged tones
and you may notice slightly faster connection speeds. 

If you haven't made the move yet the deadline is Wednesday 27th February.
(Except windows 3.1 users for whom we are making special arrangements). 
If you need any help please contact GreenNet support on 0845 055 4011

Please note that after Monday 18th March the 020 7906 1000 number will
no longer work. Anyone who uses this number should contact GreenNet
support to discuss alternatives.  
If you use this number for connecting from abroad please see
http://www.gn.apc.org/support/globalroaming/index.html.
Global Roaming gives you access to local numbers while you are abroad.  We
are currently waiving the set up fee for this service.

Best Wishes

Phil Carr
for the GreenNet Collective