Alpine Communications Blog

Elkader_Garage_Sales.pdf

The Internet is an amazing tool.  Children can use it to learn, explore, communicate, get news, and be entertained.  Unfortunately, people can use the Internet to harm or exploit children.  It is important to take the reality of online threats seriously.  While our lives can get busy, taking some time to understand the risks and simple ways to protect your children is one of the best investments you can make.

Safety Tools

Here are some software tools you may want to consider using in your home:

Filtering Software: Software that blocks sites for keywords you have concerns about.  Outgoing filtering prevents kids from sharing personal information (name, number, address, etc.)

Monitoring and Tracking Software: Software that allows you to know what your kids are doing online and how long they are online.

Blocking Software: Allows you to set-up a "good site" list or a "bad site" list that helps control what sites users can go to.

Alpine Communications recommends SecureIT Plus for users with children in the home.  Not only does SecureIT Plus offer fully managed anti-virus and spyware protection, it offers parental controls.  This solution provides the following key elements to ensure the protection you need:

• Internet Content Filtering
• Internet Access Controls
• Time Management Controls.
• Monitoring / Reporting
• Automatic Updates

Call Alpine Communications today at 245-4000 for more information on SecureIT Plus or how to keep your children safe online.

You're looking at your phone bill thinking someone must have made a mistake. How can you be charged for web hosting when you don't know what web hosting is? Why does your bill list a couple of international calls when all your friends and business contacts are stateside?

Chances are you've been crammed.

Cramming happens when an independent company adds a charge to your Alpine Communications phone bill for a service you didn't order, agree to, or use.

You may wonder why Alpine Communications would allow such charges be added to your local phone bill. Cramming companies have billing addresses so if these charges were not billed on your local phone bill, they would be billed directly to you. By allowing these charges on your local phone bill, Alpine is able to assist in stopping the service and helping get the charges reversed.

What can you do? Read Your Bill

• Catching cramming charges means taking time to read your Alpine phone bill each month - that is, once you get to know your bill a little better.
• If your telephone bill changes from month to month...Make it a habit to check the charges on your bill each month for services you haven't ordered or calls you haven't made.
• If your telephone bill usually is the same...If your bill goes up one month, even by just a few dollars, take a closer look. Theres no one type of cramming charge. Some charges appear just once; others are "subscription" charges that show up every month. Are there calls you didn't make? Charges for Internet services from a company you don’t know? Area codes you've never heard of, like 011 or 500? The charges could be for anything, including:
  
  • access to restricted websites 
  • collect calls
  • entertainment services with a 900 area code
  • club memberships

Reduce Your Risk of Cramming
Sometimes, there's nothing you can do to prevent a determined crammer from adding fake charges to your phone bill. Take the following actions if unknown or suspicious charges are listed on your telephone bill:

• Immediately call the company that charged you for calls you did not place, or services you did not authorize or use. Ask the company to explain the charges. Request an adjustment to your bill for any incorrect charges.
• Call Alpine Communications at 245-4000. We can assist you with the procedure for removing incorrect charges from your bill.

** Customers have reported that "cramming companies" seem to be telling the customer the same thing.  Many ask the customers to verify some form of information, such as an address and then the recorded "yes" is used as a verification for the sale.  Don't say yes. If you do end up in a conversation with a telemarketer never use the word yes. Use words like maybe, possibly, I don't know, etc.

Join us for this free, virtual training experience at Alpine Communications' conference facility in Elkader. Iowa Network Services in partnership with Alpine will be offering a webinar "Buying on eBay" on Tuesday, September 15 at 6 p.m. This introduction covers all the basics, including registration, searching, feedback, using PayPal and more. The presentation will be available for those attending the webinar. Please RSVP for this webinar to Alpine Communications at 245-4000. 

Upcoming Webinars:
Selling on eBay, Online Shopping, Digital Photos, Online Fraud, Social Networking, Child Safety. 

We owe our success to loyal customers like you. To show our appreciation, you are invited to our 5th annual FREE Customer Appreciation Dinner. Please join us on Thursday, September 17, 2009 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at our Business Office in Elkader. It's sure to be a great end to your work day.

Head to the Alpine Customer Appreciation Dinner to:

Voice Mail is a calling feature that has become an essential part of my life.  My husband and my children had a bad habit of listening to the messages on our answering machine, deleting them and never giving me the message, even though the messages were something I needed.  This was especially important when it came to school announcements.  I would be so frustrated at times.  I added voice mail and I have been able to get a lot more of my messages. 

Using voice mail is so simple.  Dial a local number, enter a pin number, and retrieve your messages from anywhere.  However, my husband knows our pin number and can still get into the system, listen and delete messages.  He has a habit of forgetting to tell me information that pertains to me.  Recently I learned of the additional feature of having my voice mail converted to a wave file and sent to my e-mail.  " Voice mail to email" has solved my problem of not getting my messages. 

Here is an example of a voice mail to email message.

Conveniently I get my voice mails sent to my e-mail at work and it has actually improved several areas of my life.  Now I don't have to worry about missing any messages but I also don't have to worry about returning call more timely.  I used to get messages from doctors' offices and others to change appointment time and I used to get last minute change messages from the school.  Of course, by the time I got home at night it would be too late to return phone calls to any business or I had just missed the last minute school events.  Then I would try to remember to return phones calls during regular business hours the next day but would forget.  Now I can get the voice mail at work and return the call during the breaks at work. 

Voice mail with the voice mail to email feature has made communicating less stressful and more reliable.  We can all benefit from a stress-free solution in at least one area of our lives.

Margaret Corlett, Alpine Finance Manager

Alpine Communications offers UPS shipping services in Elkader.  Customers can drop off pre-paid UPS packages for $1.00 each or we can weigh and label the packages for you.  Recently a number of customers have tried to ship packages that are incorrectly prepared or boxed. So then we must refuse the shipment until it meets UPS's standards. 

Mike Plumley, Alpine combination technician, recounts the experiences he has when showing customers the Alpine Online Directory . The customers are amazed to see how easy it is to find all of the people and telephone numbers on one website.

Please join us in welcomingGreg Lovell as Alpine's newest employee. Greg started as a Product Specialist in August which is a new position. Greg - AKA the "Specialist" - will be the go-to-guy that knows each of Alpine's products and services inside and out and how our products help our customers communicate better.  He will be the first line of contact for our customers specialized needs: key systems, Centrex, home/business security, managed IT services, web design, data storage, and more. 

Greg recently graduated from DeVry University in Chicago with a degree in Network and Communications Management.  He was also the Alpine Communications Scholarship recipient for Clayton Ridge High School in 2005. It is fulfilling to support our local students' educational goals and provide an opportunity for them to return to rural Iowa as young professionals.  

Greg was previously employed at Best Buy and the Geek Squad in the largest store in Illinois providing personal tech support, assisting customers with computer, video, and entertainment purchases.  His experience will provide our customers with a wealth of knowledge about emerging technologies.

In Greg's spare time he enjoys ATVing, trap and target shooting, and is a devoted Green Bay Packers fan.  Welcome Greg!