However, in the midst of a growing demand for this type of technology, we've spent the last few months working to meet this need. And, we're excited to announce that a new Power over Ethernet (PoE) NetEqualizer is now available!

Here's what you can expect:

• Power over Ethernet
• Up to 10 megabits of shaping
• Up to 200 users
• Comes complete with all standard NetEqualizer features

Pricing for the new model will be $1,200 for existing NetEqualizer users and $1,550 for non-customers purchasing their first unit. However, the price for subsequent units will be $1,200 for users and nonusers alike.

We currently do not have a name for this new model and will be taking suggestions over the next month. The person suggesting the name that is eventually chosen will receive a Garmin GPS unit. So, let us know what you think.

For more information about the new release, or to suggest a name, contact us at admin@apconnections.net or 1-800-918-2763.

From April 7 to May 7, 2009, all customers who purchase a NetEqualizer NE2000-100 and above will receive a Garmin nüvi 200 (Part Number: 010-00621-10). In addition, all purchases of NetEqualizer models NE2000-20 or NE2000-45 will qualify for a complimentary Garmin eTrex H (Part Number: 010-00631-00).

To receive the Garmin GPS systems, customers should send both the serial number and purchase date from the qualifying NetEqualizer via e-mail to admin@netequalizer.com. Requests for the Garmin units must be received by May 31, 2009. Only NetEqualizer models purchased and paid for in full between April 7, 2009, and May 7, 2009, will qualify.

The offer is good only while supplies last. Standard mapping software as provided by Garmin is included. All other accessories and mapping software must be purchased separately.

Eleven Ways to Make Your ISP/WISP More Profitable

As the demand for Internet access continues to grow around the world, opportunities for service providers are emerging in markets far and wide. Yet, simply offering Internet service, even in untapped areas, does not guarantee long term success. Just as quickly as your customer base grows, the challenges facing ISPs and WISPs begin to emerge.

From competition to unhappy customers, the business venture that once seemed certain to succeed can quickly test the will of even the most battle-hardened and tech savvy business owners. However, there are ways to make the road to profitability a little smoother.

1. Make Sure You Have an Easy Customer Base to Grow into -- Perhaps 500 households before you start building out. Yes, you can do it for less, but 500 is sort of a magic number where you can pay yourself and perhaps some hired help so you can be profitable and take a day off. WISPs and ISPs with 100 customers are great, but, at that size, they will remain a hobby that you may not be able to unload a couple of years down the road.
2. Set Boundaries from the Start -- When starting up a new service, don't let your customers run wide open. You may be OK without putting rate caps on users when you have only 10 customers sharing a 10 meg link, but when you get to 100 customers sharing a 10 meg link, you'll need to put rate caps on them all. The problem with waiting is that your original users will become accustomed to higher speeds and will not be happy with sharing as your business expands - unless you enforce some reasonable restrictions up front.

Joe brings over 20 years of high-technology sales and business development experience to APconnections. Most recently, he served as the vice president of North American sales and customer service for Cymer, Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of lasers used in semiconductor photolithography.

Prior to this, Joe held sales positions of increasing responsibility with IBM, Cullinet Software and Micron Semiconductor, putting together an impressive track record of business expansion and development. In addition to his industry experience, Joe holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from UCLA.

It used to be that connection limits would greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth to a p2p or bittorrent user because we did not see any single connection from a p2p server that would deliver more than 28kbs of data (or it was very rare). However, now we are seeing single bittorrent streams deliver speeds up to a T1 (they are coming from commercial bittorrent sites) and so it is not enough to just limit p2p with a connection limit.

Hence, users at the University of New Brunswick developed the following scripts for their NetEqualizer to combine heavy connection users with additional hard limits.

From the User:

Addonly.pl is something cron to run every 20 minutes and looks for users with excessive connections. It places a hard limit on them and a connection limit on them as long as they are internal IP addresses.

Del.pl is something run every couple of hours. Basically, it looks for IP's that should no longer be in the restricted bin. At the same time, new ones can still be added in.

The crontabs look like this:

• #### Check connection limits every 20 minutes and place hard limits for high users
• # run this between 7am and 8pm. Clock on neteq behind by 5 hours
• 0,20,40 * * * * /home/root/addonly.pl > /tmp/addlimit.out 2>/tmp/addlimit.junk
• #clean up the limiting table every 2 hours during this time
• 15 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22 * * * /home/root/del.pl > /tmp/limit.out 2>/tmp/limit.junk

All scripts require a file in /home/root called hardlimit.txt to keep track of what is and what is not in the current restricted table. It can be started as a blank file.