COAST COMMUNICATIONS ANNOUNCEMENTS ARCHIVE

Spam Alert
1-26-2009

In the past month there have been emails generated asking for your username and password for the Internet. These emails are what is called "phishing". Coast Communications would not send out a mass email requesting such information. Please disregard these emails, they did not come from us. Thank you.

You asked for added channels! We listened!

Dear Valued Customer,

Coast Communications company would like to thank you for your patronage and patience as we endeavored to bring you more of what you asked for. It's taken five years, but the upgrade is now complete. On December 1, 2008, you will see an expanded analog and soon an expanded digital lineup.

FX and MSNBC, Hallmark Movie Channel and Fox Movie Channel, Oxygen, Hall;mark, to name a few, will be just a remote click away. In addition two new music channels, CMT and VH1, will be added. For those Trekki, CSI and Ultimate Fighting fans, Spike TV has returned!

Yes, through our extensive fiber optic network we can now bring you new channels. All analog channels, including the new ones, are listed on channel 53. Our analog and digital line up are shown in the Interactive Digital Program Guide. Those customers that do not have a converter box please initiate your TV's auto program function to program the added channels to your TV. For customers that do have a converter box, relax, the converter will automatically reprogram itself to display the added channels.

As of February 17, 2009, the broadcasters will be required to turn off their analog transmitters. Rest assured Coast Communications has taken all the steps necessary so service to our customers will continue without interruption. Our customers will not need to change any of their equipment to enjoy the Seattle local stations, nor do anything extra to continue to receive the Seattle programs.

Get your local television service, high speed internet service and phone from one provider and with one bill.

Rate Increase:

We do our best to control our operating costs but certain increases for programming and the addition of new channels has increased our costs. Unfortunately, many of these cost increases such as rate increases from our program sources and fuel; costs are beyond our control.

Effective January 1, 2009, Coast Communications will raise its monthly rates. Basic cable service for residential and commercial customers for the North Beach and Ocean Shores areas will increase to $49.95, plus the applicable tax. This increase will affect all Basic and Digital Basic customers. Essential Basic Service customers will see a small service rate increase to $27.95. Premium packages, including HBO, Showtime and Cinemax-Starz! will also see modest increases of $1.00 each. These increases will be reflected as well in the Coast Digital packages.

We are please to note there will be NO rate increase at this time for our Internet and Digital Phone services.

Thank you for being our customer.

Sincerely,

Ronald Thomasson
VP/General Manager

November, 2008 - System Upgrade is Completed!

Thank you for your patience during the system upgrade. Everything appears to be running smoothly. If you are having any issues please do not hesitate to call and have us check them out. THANK YOU, again for bearing with us during this process!

Coast's Dial Up Service to End
As of May 1st, 2008 Coast Access will no longer provide dial up service. The main dial up users have been notified by mail. Those of you with High Speed Internet Service will no longer be able to use the 10 hours of dial up service that was offered in the past. If you have any questions please call our office at 289-2252. Thank you for your business.

Internet Bandwidth Usage - Important! Please Read.

Recently Coast Communications sent out a mass email notification to ALL of our Internet customers informing them that we will begin enforcing our Acceptable Use Policy more stringently, specifically in the area of bandwidth usage.  This email provided links to the Coast Access Internet Portal Page where you can access the Acceptable Use Policy and read it.

The reason for this notification is Coast Communications has noticed there are a few customers that are using bandwidth in the range of 100 to 300 GB.  Coast Communications is allotted so much bandwidth and when we go over this allotted amount the company is charged an additional fee.  Therefore, we must begin the monitoring process and charging for additional usage on an individual basis.

Following is an explanation of what Bandwidth is and how to calculate it.

Bandwidth

Also known as data transfer. Measured in GB (Giga Bytes, 1 GB = 1024 MB ~ 1000 MB). Bandwidth is more valuable than disk space. Your bandwidth usage is the amount of data transfer (sending and receiving of data) between your computer and the Internet. It is measured on a monthly basis and is 'reset' at the beginning of each month. Your bandwidth usage will vary every month depending on how large the files are that you send or receive.

If you assume you will visit 5,000 websites in a month and you download 10 of pictures that are 50 KB each, you will need 5,000 x 10 x 50 KB = 2,500,000 KB which is equivalent to 2.5 GB of bandwidth. This is the easiest way to estimate your bandwidth. Usually text files (HTML) will not consume a lot of bandwidth because they are naturally small in size. Your bandwidth estimation should be based on the binary files usage (pictures, ZIP files, Macromedia Flash, MP3s, Movies, etc.)

Also, if you have a wireless connection in your home, Coast Communications highly recommends that you password protect your system.  With wireless, others can pick up and use your signal, which will add to your bandwidth usage.  Please monitor all aspects of your system.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call the office at 1-360-289-2252 or the help line at
1-888-207-0204.  We are here to help make your Internet experience an enjoyable one.

Coast Digital Phone is here!

Coast Digital Phone is offered at one low Flat Rate which includes long distance within the continental U.S. and Canada. International calls are billed at a much lower rate than your current phone provider. This service includes many specialty items one would normally pay extra for, such as call waiting, caller ID number identification, call forwarding, call blocking, voice mail and many others. You as the consumer are in full control of managing your account via your online account and password.

You do not need to have a computer to be able to use this service!

Introductory Price $19.95 per month for current cable customers. Please call our office for further information. 360-289-2252. Coast Digital Phone can be packaged with other services for even greater long-term savings.

Credit Card Billing and Payments!

Many of our customers have asked for some sort of automatic billing to their credit card. We are pleased to announce that starting in April 2007 we were able to provide this service! We have enclosed notices with your billing statement to tell you more about this new service and already have a number of customers signed up. We currently accept MasterCard and VISA credit cards for processing.

For further information on this new program, please call our office staff at 360-289-2252, Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.