Cruzio Newsletter - Number 69, October 6, 2003
1. Welcome to Our Small Business Fair--Starts Wednesday 4:30 pm!
2. Cruzio DSL $29.95/mo
3. Faster Uploads for DSL
4. Spam Abatement: Some Success
5. Cruzio DSL and the Politics of Broadband Today
6. Buddy Bucks: Sign Up a Friend for Cruzio Credit
7. Turn in Cans Instead of Late Fees
8. About This Newsletter
9. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. Welcome to Our Small Business Fair--Starts Wednesday 4:30 pm!
Every Wednesday for the next 4 weeks, 4:30 to 7 pm
At the Museum of Art and History, downtown Santa Cruz
To register: http://www.smallbusinessfair.com
Learn how to get started and succeed in running a small business
in the Santa Cruz area. Plus, win raffle prizes and enjoy delicious
snacks. That's Cruzio's annual Small Business Fair.
Some of our featured speakers are businesspeople who've turned their
local operations into nationwide successes. Others are the experts
to whom you turn when you need funding, marketing, or technical help.
We have all new panelists every year. Here are just a few of the
featured speakers this year:
* Jeremiah Ridenour, Co-Founder Wildwood Harvest Foods (this week!)
* Eric Mendelson, Loan Officer Coast Commercial Bank (this week!)
* Tom Brady, Marketing Director, O'Neill
* Cathy Summa, Cabrillo College's Director of Marketing
* Marcus Cato, Managing Director, Shakespeare Santa Cruz
SCHEDULE of TOPICS:
October 8th, "Growing Your Business"
October 15th, "Generating Sales and Keeping Customers"
October 22nd, "Technology Choices for Small Businesses"
October 29th, "Achieving Online Success"
Cost for Cruzio customers:
$30 each evening, or $100 for all 4 evenings if you pre-register;
$40 at the door
To pre-register, call Cruzio at 459.6301 x247 or visit
http://www.smallbusinessfair.com
2. Cruzio DSL $29.95/mo
Just a reminder that we've extended our popular DSL sale.
Until December 30th, Cruzio DSL is just $29.95 plus tax
for the first 12 months. It's a great time to upgrade to
broadband. Yes, it's much faster than dialup; the price is
right; and it comes with Cruzio's friendly, reliable service.
If you are ready to order Cruzio DSL, visit:
https://quartz.cruzio.com/dslorder/order_dsl.html
3. Faster Uploads for Cruzio DSL
Cruzio DSL upload speeds are scheduled to increase across the
board as of October 25th, but many people are already experiencing
faster uploads.
In the past, Cruzio's basic DSL accounts had upload speeds limited
to 128 kbps. Now, those speeds will be ranging higher, depending
on your line, and may go as high as up to 256 kbps. Download speeds
(for Web browsing and getting email) will stay the same. No price
increase for the extra speed!
4. Spam Abatement: Some Success
Cruzio customers and staff are reporting satisfaction with the
latest spam filter revamp, which happened in September. Our
engineers implemented a filter program that identifies
spam more correctly than ever before: more spam is deleted
and fewer "false positives" occur. We continue to work on further
improvements. It's a constant battle. Thanks for all the
encouragement and for the compliments on this last round.
5. Cruzio DSL and the Politics of Broadband Today
We recently learned that Cruzio is the #5 largest reseller
of DSL in all of SBC territory. That makes us one of the top
DSL sellers in the state of California.
Why is Cruzio, a small company, so successful with DSL? First,
our staff is very, very good at handling DSL. We process
the orders efficiently, we bill correctly, we help customers
with any and all difficulties. We've done this for years,
for over 3,000 customers, and we are better at providing and
supporting this complex product than just about any other
company.
At the same time, the phone companies have a tight clench
on DSL, so that very few ISPs are able to sell much of it at all.
The telecommunications giants, now supported by a friendly FCC,
are pushing hard towards consolidation, leaving smaller providers
in the cold. Cruzio early on saw a need for low-cost, high speed
Internet and stubbornly pursued success with DSL, but we are one of
the few small companies who have done so.
So congratulations to Cruzio staff on working through the maze of
bureaucracy and technical problems to come out ahead of the DSL
pack. And shame on you, SBC and FCC, for allowing the phone companies
to take over 95% of the DSL market. If the number of providers shrinks,
the big providers left will control access to the Internet -- and
when they control access, we fear they will control content. That
would be a great loss to freedom of expression.
6. Buddy Bucks
Recommend us to friends, family, colleagues: if a new customer
gives us your email address, id number, or full name when they
sign up you'll get $10 credit to your account. If two friends
sign up, $20. Three friends, $30. It just goes on and on.
7. Turn in Cans Instead of Late Fees
If you're late on a payment to Cruzio, turn it into a donation
to hungry folks in our community. We will waive your late
fee if you bring 3 cans into our office for our Second Harvest
Food Bin barrel. Learn more about this charity at
http://www.thefoodbank.org
8. About This Newsletter
Cruzio doesn't like to waste bandwidth with extra email, but we sometimes
have events and announcements that users need to know about. This seems
like the most efficient way to let people know what's happening. Hope
it's helpful. Please email support@cruzio.com with any comments or
questions. By the way, we would love to have a regular, predictable
schedule for this newsletter...but we simply do not send it unless
there is real news enclosed. Thus the haphazard datelines.
9. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
To reach the Cruzio Information Center, for online technical and
sales information:
http://www.cruzio.com/support
To dial in to Cruzio, set your software to dial one of the numbers
below.
56k: 459-9408
33.6 kbps and under: 459-6230
To call Cruzio:
459-6301............Use this number to check Cruzio's system status,
pay your Cruzio bill, find out more about our hours and location,
or to reach someone in customer service and technical support.
To send email to Cruzio, use one of these addresses:
support@cruzio.com ......for technical support
office@cruzio.com .......for billing and ordering information
Cruzio's location:
903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Cruzio's hours:
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Monday through Friday; 10 am - 2 pm Saturday
Technical support: 10-6 pm, Monday through Friday, 10am - 2pm Saturday
System monitoring, including customer-alerted emergencies, 24 hours
per day, 365 days per year (leap years, 366 days)
Thanks very much from Cruzio:
Chris, Peggy, Julianne, Kathy, Mark, Martin, Georgette,
Tapati, Pedro, Alec, Stephen, Paul, Gershom, Jessi, Michael,
another Chris, Maria, Ezra, James, Juana, Krissie, Nikkie,
Mike, Mario, Don, Bruce, and Jason (the grownups);
Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
Daddy gets to hear the racier jokes...
Jake, age 11: Why did Tigger stick his head in the toilet?
Daddy: (taking sip of wine) I don't know, why?
Jake: Because he was looking for Pooh!
Daddy: (snorts wine out his nose) gasp - ha ha - gasp
