Spirit Telecom is upgrading the features provided to its customers and migrating to a new platform of services.

Although most of the features will remain, some will be replaced with upgraded products that are easier to use and control and new services have been added to make your Internet experience more useful and secure.

WHAT REMAINS UNCHANGED

Parental Controls - Allows end users the ability to allow blocks of time when users can access the Internet. This feature can be used by parents to determine when their children are allowed to "surf the Web".

Tattle-mail - Tattle-mail is like a watchdog for Greymail. Some content in Greymail may be inappropriate for children. Tattle-mail provides a password for access to Greymail and sends an e-mail to a specified address when anyone in the Parent/Child group of accounts tries to access Greymail, especially if they are successful at doing so, indicating that the password has been compromised.

Separate Personal Web Space - 10MB of space. This is the tilde (~) URL web space traditionally provided by Spiritcom.net. Existing personal web page content will be migrated over to our systems and will continue to be available to you after the conversion.

Authentication – Subscribers must use their full e-mail address for authentication. After the migration, passwords will be case sensitive providing an increased level of security with less likelihood of accounts being accessed by password generation technology employed by hackers and identity thieves.

Outbound E-mail Filtering - In order to reduce viruses and spam, outgoing e-mail servers will require SMTP Authentication using the full e-mail username (username@spiritcom.net) and password to authenticate users before sending e-mail. This will require that minor configuration changes in your e-mail programs be updated to support SMTP authentication, and that you log in with your full username and password for e-mail sessions.

Postini - Greymail will replace Postini to quarantine spam and viruses. Greymail allows users to safely see their quarantined mail, forward approved e-mails to their inbox, see which e-mails may contain viruses, and select options for spam life, spam sensitivity, and toggle spam and virus notifications on or off. Customers can use the End User Control Panel to turn spam and virus filtering on or off, control their spam sensitivity, block e-mail from specific addresses, entire domains, or a combination of these (Blocked), block mail from countries known for generating a lot of spam, or allow mail from specific addresses or domains to go through to their inbox (Approved).

Subscriber Utilities - The end User Control Panel will replace this feature. All of the tools you will need to manage your account(s) are in one easy to use MyAccount interface. You can change your password, add and remove basic Internet services, modify spam and virus settings, add, edit or delete child e-mail accounts, manage you personal web space, access WebMail, access Greymail and edit your advanced e-mail settings all in one convenient location. The site is accessed at http://username.spiritcom.net.

ToolKit Mail/Webmail - Users will retrieve their mail via the web using WebMail. Address books created in the various ToolKit Mail programs will be lost if not transferred over. WebMail contact lists or address books will be migrated over to our systems and will continue to be available to your end users after the conversion. Our systems can transfer a first and last name, a nickname and an e-mail address for each contact. See “Saving ToolkitMail E-mail Addresses” at spiritcom.net for information on how to save the addresses.

Internet SafetyKit - Spirit will offer PC-cillin from Trend Micro, a downloadable software program, to protect end users from viruses, zombies, spyware and identity theft as a replacement to our current Internet SafetyKit product. The current Internet Safetykit will be retired and new signups will not be allowed after April 30.

CONCERNS

Case sensitivity for passwords - After the upgrade, passwords will become case sensitive; making sure that upper and lower case letters in passwords match, providing an increased level of security with less likelihood of accounts being accessed by password generation technology employed by hackers and identity thieves. Existing usernames and passwords will not change during the upgrade. There is no need to change passwords to upper or lower case letters unless you wish to do so for added security

SMTP Authentication - Outgoing e-mail servers will require SMTP Authentication using the full e-mail username (username@spiritcom.net) and password to authenticate before sending e-mail. This will require that minor configuration changes in your e-mail programs be updated to support SMTP authentication, and that you log in with your full username and password for e-mail sessions.

Address books created in Webmail - Address books created in “ToolkitMail” will be lost if not transferred to the new web mail service. “Webmail” contact lists or address books will be migrated over to our systems and will continue to be available to your end users after the conversion. Our systems can transfer a first and last name, a nickname and an e-mail address for each contact. Additional information is not transferable at this time. See “Saving ToolkitMail E-mail Addresses” at spiritcom.net for information on how to save the addresses.

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