As Tropical Storm Barry bears down on Louisiana, we want to inform you about our network preparedness, service disruption issues, and repair response concerns should we incur heavy damages or outages. We will do our best to keep you updated on outages as they occur via Facebook or phone message on our tech support line (337-783-3436 Option 1).

Network Preparedness:

• Backup Generators: Our two main towers in Crowley and Duson have backup generators to provide power as long as needed.
• Battery Backup: All other towers have battery backup that will last anywhere from 18 -30 hours depending on the amount of equipment at the tower.
• Replacement Equipment: We have backup replacement equipment for all towers should damages occur but not enough to replace ALL equipment in a worst-case scenario.

Service Disruption Issues:

• Extended Power Outages: If power outages occur at our towers for extended periods of time, the battery system will run out and internet service will not be restored until power has been restored.
• Antenna Alignment: Due to high sustained winds, it is possible that radio dish antennas on our tower and on your house may shift and go out of alignment. If that happens, internet service will not be restored until the antenna has been realigned. You may want to note the direction your internet antenna is facing prior to the storm so if it is shifted, you can report that to us.
• Slower Than Normal Internet Service: Internet usage WILL BE at capacity during the storm because everyone will be home inside waiting out the storm using their devices. It will be more than PEAK times ALL DAY!
• Lightning Damage: There is a high probability that equipment on our towers will be damaged.

Repair Response Concerns:

• Our number one priority is to make sure ALL towers are repaired and working properly before restoring service at residences.
• Tower repair response times will depend on favorable weather and the availability of tower crews. We won’t be the only business affected.
• Once towers have been repaired, restoring service at your house will depend on accessibility due to possible flooding in the area.
• Repair times will be longer than normal based on the number of customers affected. There is also a chance we may be short-handed for at time as REACH4 employees maybe flooded in, dealing with power outages themselves, or repairing their own homes.

If you’ve ever signed up for an email newsletter or added your email address to a website’s mailing list, your emails from that sender are probably being tracked. Mailing services like MailChimp and Postmark automatically gather some information from the emails they send, such as whether the message was opened, if any links were clicked, and sometimes even what device was used or what time zone it was in.
Many websites use this information to keep their email lists up to date. When they see that someone hasn’t opened any emails from their site in a few months, they remove that email address from their mailing list. Marketing departments and sales teams may also use email tracking software to see when a prospective client has read their emails so that they can send a follow-up email soon after to encourage the sale.
Email tracking software works by including a small bit of code, often in a single-pixel image, in the body of the message. There may also be code included in the clickable links within the email. That code relays all that information back to the sender so that they know who has been interacting with their emails or ignoring them.
If you’d prefer not to let your email-viewing habits get out, don’t worry! There are ways to block these email trackers. The easiest way is to go into your account settings and set your account to ask before displaying images or external content. This will block any hidden images that contain tracking code, but you can still allow images for the emails you choose on a case-by-case basis. Another way to block email tracking software is to use a browser extension, such as Ugly Email. Ugly Email is an extension for Firefox and Chrome which blocks many of the most common trackers. It marks tracked emails with an eyeball icon next to the subject line in your inbox to warn you, but it also blocks the tracking software when you open the message, so your privacy is protected.
Email trackers have been around almost as long as email newsletters, and most senders don’t use them maliciously. Trying to avoid all tracked emails is probably impossible, but you have every right to protect your privacy with all the tools available to you.
Affordable high-speed Internet service is available in your neighborhood! Contact us today to learn about the plans we can offer you.

Streaming video has become the primary online activity for many people.  Whether you’ve cut the cord on your cable or you just really love Netflix and cute cat videos, odds are that you stream a lot of video over your Internet connection.  How can you make sure you’re getting the best streaming experience possible?

Check your speed

Make sure you have enough speed for the service you’re using.  Netflix recommends 3 Mbps for SD, 5 Mbps for HD, and 25 Mbps for Ultra HD.  SlingTV requires the same numbers for mobile devices, single stream to a computer or tv, and multiple devices, respectively.  YouTube’s minimums are 2.5 Mbps for 720p, 4 Mbps for 1080p, and 15 Mbps for 4k Ultra HD.  Hulu has the lowest bandwidth requirements at 1.5 Mbps for SD, 3 Mbps for 720p, 6 Mbps for 1080p, and 13 Mbps for 4k Ultra HD.

Check your settings

Adjust your playback settings to match your bandwidth speed and limit your data usage.  In a Netflix account, these settings can be set for each profile separately under My Profile.  For SlingTV, playback settings have to be set on each device by going to Settings, and then Connection.  YouTube playback can be changed on mobile devices to limit mobile data under Settings.  Hulu has not released any information about changing playback settings.

Use common sense

Remember a few things:

1. Your stream can only be as good as your hardware. If you don’t have an HD TV, you won’t get any benefit from streaming in HD, so don’t bother using all that bandwidth and data.
2. Using multiple devices at once changes your available bandwidth speed. If your Internet connection is 25 Mbps and 2 people are streaming on separate devices, both streams are getting about 12.5 Mbps.
3. If your Internet connection has a data limit, even a high one, it pays to keep track of it. Most ISP’s that use data limits offer alerts by email or text at certain milestones like 50%, 75%, or 90%.

For affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service in your neighborhood, contact us today!

We’ve all become very aware of privacy concerns and the need to protect our information online in recent years. We’ve learned to create stronger passwords, to ignore phishing scam emails, and to clear our browsing history regularly. But there’s another layer to online privacy that you may not have thought of yet: your search history. If you’ve ever noticed that after you’ve searched for some product you suddenly see ads for that product or similar things on every page you visit, you know what this is about. Every time you Google anything, that information is collected and used to target advertising from various retailers, among other things.
That thought may be discomforting, but don’t worry! According to a tutorial from The Next Web, there are two ways that you can clear your Google search history.
1. Go to myactivity.google.com and make sure you’re signed in with your Google account.
2. Choose “Delete activity by” from the left-hand sidebar.
3. In the form provided, first choose your date range, then go to the drop-down menu labeled “All Products” and choose “search”.
4. Click “delete”.
You can also delete your search history directly from the Google search page.
1. Go to the Google homepage while you’re logged into your Google account.
2. Click on “Settings”, then “Your data in search”.
3. Choose either to review your search history, delete your search history from the last hour, or delete all your search history all the way back to 2005.
Deleting your search history will keep you from getting so many search-based ads and prevent Google from building a profile of you for targeted advertising. It’s just another way to keep your information and activity private, which is more important than ever as so much of our lives happen online.
We provide affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service in your area. Contact us today to see what we can do for you!

We all know the importance of keeping your passwords secure and changing them regularly. We also know that you shouldn’t use the same password for multiple sites, but with every website requiring a login, using a different password for everything can seem impossible. Unfortunately, more and more, it seems to be a question of when a site may be breached, rather than if it will be. So how can you know if your passwords have been compromised?
Mozilla has recently launched a new service called Firefox Monitor. All you need to do is enter your email address and it will check for possible breaches using the trusted Have I Been Pwned database. You can also sign up for notifications in case your email address ever turns up in the future. In addition, Firefox users will receive notifications when they visit a site that has been breached in the past.
An important feature of this service is the fact that your email address is not shared even with the Monitor’s partner database. Each request is encrypted on Firefox’s side, and only part of the encrypted entry is sent. HIBP replies with all its entries that include that part, and then Firefox matches up those responses to your information. Nothing ever passes through any third parties. For a more in depth look at this new service, check out this report at Engadget.

We offer affordable, reliable, high speed Internet service in your area! To learn more, contact us and find out what we can do for you.

We’ve all grown so used to information at our fingertips that it can be disorienting when we try to pull up a website only to be greeted with an error message. Is it our Internet connection? Is the site down? Has the site disappeared from the Internet? Who knows?
Don’t worry. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common error messages you might find.
1. HTTP Error 404 – Not Found
This is probably the most common error message you’ll see, and it means that the page you’re looking for just isn’t there. This could be a glitch in the website, or the page may have been permanently removed from the Internet. No need to worry about your connection if you can still reach other sites.
2. HTTP Error 400 – Bad Request
Another common error message, this one means that your request for the webpage didn’t make sense somehow. Check your typing for mistakes, and maybe check your Internet connection just to make sure you can reach other sites.
3. HTTP Error 403 – Forbidden
This one is a bit less common, but you may find it occasionally if you click on a part of a site that isn’t supposed to be open to the public. It’s not dangerous – it won’t give you a virus or malware – it’s just telling you that you can’t go through that particular door.
4. HTTP Error 401 – Unauthorized
Again, this doesn’t mean anything dangerous. This error means that you don’t have the right login credentials (or you’ve tried several times and now you’re locked out).
5. HTTP Error 500 – Internal Server Error
This error always means the problem is on the website’s side, not yours. The site’s server is overwhelmed, or misconfigured, or down for maintenance, or something else. No need to worry, just try again later.
We offer affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service in your area. Contact us today to learn what we can do for you!