To our Wireless Customers,

NBS would like to apologize for the recent down time on our Internet services and for any inconveniences it may have caused you. We appreciate your business and your patience and we also appreciate you taking the time to read this email, and would like to inform you as to the actions we have taken and will take in the future to prevent further down time as much as possible.

The NBS Wireless Internet service can be generally classified in two distinct categories:

1) CUSTOMER PREMISE SYSTEM referred to as the CPE. This is the equipment located at your home.
2) NBS Wireless Network Network. This consists of Access Points, Bridges and other equipment that are located at our towers

Regarding the CPE, this includes the radio equipment mounted outside of your house/building and the computer system or network it is connected to. Our first year of business resulted in a greater failure rate of the outside equipment than we deemed acceptable. This failure rate has improved dramatically with the release of the upgraded radios for the customer location and it also allows us to provide a better signal through the use of external antennas and amplifiers.

As to the equipment inside your home, what we see is failures in the inexpensive home version routers, both hard-wired and all the new wireless ones. That is simply due to the fact that these things are mass produced these days as cheaply as possible, which is reflected in the low cost. They are definitely considered throw away items.

Beyond the hardware, what we have experienced is a fair amount of trouble due to spam, spyware, and yes, still major virus problems as well. It is no longer optional to forget about your computer anti-virus software, anti-spyware and anti-spam protection. Failure to take responsible measures to insure the safety of your computer is like driving your car recklessly without insurance…When your computer is compromised you will have computer problems and your computer will cause problems for others. This is huge world wide problem that is being addressed through technology and in some locations even legally.

Regarding the NBS Wireless Network, our system has been very stable this year, with the exception of two fairly major incidents. The first incident was one of the severe storms last spring that destroyed virtually all of our equipment on our primary distribution tower at Curnyn Construction. Per our business model, we had 100% of all equipment in stock so the down time was minimal, considering the extent of the loss. The second major incident was the power outage on New Year's Eve. Although power outages are common, usually our batteries last long enough to cover the majority of them. That was not the case this time. When the power came back on after many fairly severe surges, we have had several equipment failures--unfortunately, not all at the same time. This happens due to weakened components as opposed to complete failures.

OUR COMMITMENT TO THE CUSTOMER

We have been monitoring a weakened connection between Hillsdale and Annawan. This affects Annawan and Kewanee customers. To resolve this issue we are investing in more powerful antennas. We are scheduled to replace the entire link tomorrow with all new equipment if we cannot repair the link on the existing equipment today.

Due to power outages experienced this year we have made the decision to purchase a generator to power our central Internet distribution center here at the NBS office. In the event of a power outage at the central distribution center, our local customer base won't be affected. This is to avoid downtime for our web servers that host website and web applications for our global customer base.
NBS understands that Internet downtime can be very difficult and very inconvenient. We also realize that the problems discussed above are shared by all other Internet service providers (ISPs), only in different ways. It is our intention to provide a reliable Internet service to our customers and here is what our general business practice and policy employs:

NBS currently budgets a significant amount of time and resources to studying all new technology in support of our wireless network. We stay educated as to the changes and improvements in the gear we presently use, and in new gear from the entire industry. That is evidenced by our recent new deployment of 900mhz radio gear in Kewanee, providing greater signal coverage up to 14 miles and through trees and interference up to 7 miles. We are testing the same equipment in Geneseo at the Edwards tower and are getting ready to deploy in Cambridge at the county courthouse tower.

NBS maintains close contact with reliable manufacturers, distributors, consultants, and trade associations.

NBS provides replacement parts at no charge to the customer.

NBS stocks at least one replacement part for literally every part of the NBS WIRELESS NETWORK and at least 5 radios for our CPE.

IN ORDER TO PREVENT INCONVENIENCE TO YOU, NBS will be installing all wireless customers on our dial-up server, providing an emergency connection if the wireless link is down. This will be provided at no charge and will start to roll out in the next few weeks. We will be contacting you regarding this.

As always we thank you for your patience and loyalty!

The Staff of Network Business Systems

As always we will post mass messages sent to our users on our website at www.nbson.com/news so you can verify that any emails you get stating they are from NBS are truly from us.

In the future if you get a message that says it is from NBS go to www.nbson.com/news if you don't see a copy of it there we didn't send it and consider it a spam message. If you have further questions we urge you to call us at 309.944.8823.