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  • 2010
    • May
      • Fiber cut in Clinton County- Middleton-MapleRapids affected
        05/24/10
        A fiber that provides our backhaul connection from the Middleton-Maple Rapids-Perrinton area was damaged and caused the outage experienced on Monday. It apparently is damaged in an area with shooting/hunting and may have possibly been shot.

        A backup circuit was installed and provided ser

    • April
      • Service work - April 5th
        04/05/10
        We need to move some equipment in the office. Service work will begin at 10AM and there will be some intermittent outages as we move equipment and then power back up.

        Should be all done by 11pm.

  • 2009
    • December
      • Merry Christmas!!!! Office hours listing
        12/23/09
        Christmas Eve- 9AM to 2PM
        Christmas closed
        New Years Eve- 9AM to 2PM
        New Years day- closed

        We will be doing some work on Christmas day in the afternoon. Moving some equipment. Small outages but nothing that should be more then 15 minutes at a time.

        Thank you for

    • September
      • mutualdata.com emailserver upgraded
        09/10/09
        We finished the migration to the new server this afternoon. We had been working on this after 10PM but the problems with the server forced us to move up the switchover.

        http://oldmail.mutualdata.com:8383/Login.aspx is the address for the old server if you need to check for any mail that

      • mailserver mayhem
        09/01/09
        Our mailserver crashed this morning and we have restored from backup. We had some accounts that had to have passwords reset. We created default passwords and have been calling folks to get the account password restored. If you can send and receive email then all is well. This only affected the mutua

    • August
      • Elsie network repair
        08/24/09
        On Monday the 24th, there will be a brief interruption as we switch over to some new equipment for the Elsie-Bannister network. This only applies to connections in Elsie-Bannister areas.

        We should start around 4:30Pm and conclude by 5pm. Unfortunately, we have to work on this during the d

      • Elsie storm issues from Sunday afternoon
        08/10/09
        We got Elsie back up and running late Monday. One of the towers in town has a failed radio and it was poisoning the ethernet operation so that no access to the Internet was possible.

        Not an obvious problem to solve.

        We will be adding some additional equipment to allow for remot

    • July
      • Sunday July 26
        07/26/09
        It appears that a laser that powers our fiber backbone is acting erratically causing us to lose our connection to Lansing. Technicians are working on the problem.

    • June
      • Saturday June 6th maintenance
        06/06/09
        We were working on the St. Johns Tower today from 9:30 to 1pm. This was maintenace work for St. Johns, Elsie, Eureka, Ovid connections.

    • May
      • May 6th Fowler-Pewamo outage
        05/06/09
        Our fiber circuit to Fowler is currently down, the service provider is working on repairs to restore service.

        All of the Mutual Data part of the circuit is working properly.

      • Disturbance in the force
        05/02/09
        Saturday morning, May 2nd, there was an external attack on one of the routers in our network. We blocked that and reset the network.

        There was a single access point radio in Pewamo that required a power cycle during that same time frame.

  • 2008
    • December
      • Fluffy snow is not good for yagi antennas
        12/01/08
        Fluffy snow looks great on trees but on a yagi style antenna it is not going to allow the antenna to remain tuned to the correct operating frequency.

        Yagi antennas are the style that have a horizontal bar with small vertical elements.



    • November
      • Middleton-Rainbow Lake- Maple Rapids outage update
        11/01/08
        1. There has been an intermittent problem with a part of the backhaul in Middleton that has caused some issues with connectivity in the Middleton/Maple Rapids networks. A power supply was replaced on Saturday which we hope was the problem. Other items have already been ruled out for this failure. We

    • September
      • Price/Service levels
        09/19/08
        Just a reminder that our service levels/ price are as follows:


        BROADBAND PRICE SPEED
        Basic $28.95 *up to 500k
        Advanced $38.95 *1Mbps/500kbps
        Power User $48.95 *1Mbps QOS, Min. CIR


        If you want to drop down to the $28.95 rate just call the office o

      • email stats
        09/19/08
        Since April 2008 our spam filtering has handled the following email:
        Total Day Hour
        Blocked 17,715,849 56,007 4,949
        Blocked: Virus 506 1 0
        Rate Controlled 2,906,668 16,181 1,943
        Quarantined 101,193

    • August
      • power outages for this week.....
        08/20/08
        We had two power outages today

        First a dump truck pulled the wires down at the Gilson road and Colony road tower location.

        Second, a Fedex truck caught some Verizon wires and pulled off the power and wiring on our downtown location.

        Both have been repaired.

      • Consumers Energy repairs completed
        08/16/08
        Most of St. Johns was without power Friday night as Consumers Energy did repair work on the power station. As of this morning all systems are reporting back online.



    • July
      • Fun thing to make the day better
        07/29/08
        http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080722.html

        Take a moment to watch!!

      • Power outage in St.Johns
        07/03/08
        The main power to St. Johns failed during the early morning on Thursday. The utility pole caught on fire and then the top of the pole fell into the other high voltage wires at the transfer station. We had generator power setup by noon and service was running shortly after that.

        We are in

      • Closed on Friday for holiday weekend
        07/02/08
        The office will be closed on Friday for the Fourth of July.

        Over the weekend we will be upgrading some router firmware and there may be brief outages as routers restart. Normal maintenace if there are no weather or tower outages.

        We also have a project beginning next week whic

    • June
      • Fiber repair completed
        06/12/08
        Repair of the fiber cut was completed after midnight on Wednesday.There was about a mile of fiber replaced. We have just about everything moved back onto our main connection. I say main because it was our backup connection we used for the week to maintain services. Having multiple backbones is rathe

      • Tuesday update
        06/10/08
        News reports it was a tornado in the affected area. Consumers Power has been busy but the area of the break is still under a do not enter area.

        We have been told the trucks are being scheduled to work on the down lines which allows the fiber splicers to get in.

        I will post pict

      • Monday update
        06/09/08
        We are routing most of the traffic out a second connection that was in the construction phase. This connection is not as robust as the main link but is up and running. We are waiting for a update from Lansing and will move the mail server over to the backup if there is lengthy time delays due to the

      • fiber cut in Lansing
        06/08/08
        Repair crew is on site but tree damaged power lines as well and no one can go into area till ConPower is done.

      • weather outside is frightful......
        06/08/08
        Our area weather has been challenging the last two days. Fridays storm was ( excepting for no power problems) not so bad. One tower needed to have an antenna reaimed. Elsie area seemed to win the longest power outage. :-/

        Saturday however was a little different. The tower in Fowler took a

      • email spam stats
        06/04/08
        Just a peek at the email/spam stats.

        Total Day Hour

        Blocked 1,192,593 29,968 8,016
        Blocked: Virus 50 2 0
        Rate Controlled 1,258 946 747
        Quarantined 35,454 684 240
        Allowed: Tagge

      • June 2 service updates
        06/02/08
        This morning the construction work on the St. Johns tower is underway. There is a large crane removing the older top grain leg. We moved/re-routed all our equipment last week and are hoping that everything is out of the way.

        We are also working on two interference problems in the 900mhz b

    • April
      • Spam filter repair
        04/26/08
        Our Barracuda spam filter caught a cold, and with help from the vendor we had to reset the server on Saturday the 26th. Rules and whitelists should all be in place as before.


        The server response is a LOT faster now. As for stats about 3% of all email we receive is valid, the rest is

    • February
      • Sunday Night- SJ-Ovid -Fowler router
        02/10/08
        The main router for St. Johns-Ovid and Fowler customers is acting erratically. Due to the time and weather conditions we are monitoring and restarting the router until Monday morning.

        We will switch out in the morning if we do not figure out what is causing the issue.

  • 2007
    • December
      • Holiday hours
        12/21/07
        Our office will be open the following schedule for Christams and New years.

        Monday Dec. 24th 9am to 1 pm
        Tuesday Dec. 25th Closed
        Wednesday thro Friday 9am to 4pm ( tech support 8am to 6pm)

        Monday Dec. 31st 9am to 1 pm
        Tuesday January 1st closed

        Re

      • upgrade info- Pewamo and Eureka networks
        12/21/07
        Our crack tower climbing team recently upgraded two of our network backhauls. Pewamo to Fowler was completed on Tuesday and Eureka to St. Johns was completed on Thursday.

        We expect to continue working on network projects as long as the weather co-operates.

      • Saturday outage in Fowler
        12/01/07
        Apparently, the Fowler tower switch eating monster is back, or it is so cold our Cisco switch is not running stable. We added a heat source to help with the temps around 6:00PM but during the day different switch ports would stop working.

        We have not had this switch in a cold setting so

    • November
      • Spam Stats
        11/29/07
        Just a qucik blurb on what our spam/virus blocking filters handle. Since last year the stats are as follows:

        Blocked 38,661,689
        Blocked: Virus 42,961
        Quarantined 308,575
        Allowed: Tagged 0
        Allowed 1,892,727

      • Dialup issues and phone issues
        11/21/07
        There appears to be a problem with how phone lines are switched between Verizon and our phone conection. We have been told that technicians are working on the problem.



      • Winter is coming
        11/05/07
        Most of the open tower projects will begin winding down with winter closing in on us.

        Currently, we are readying a tower in Rainbow Lake to launch as well as upgrades to two towers for higher throughput/better equipment.

        All of the fiber work on the backbone has been complete

      • Phone Logs
        11/05/07
        Since July 1st, our phone system has logged 5886 individual calls.

        Interesting statistics.

        The system will record each call if it connects and begins the connection process.

        We have full ability to search the call records.

        Have a great day!!

    • August
      • Network update
        08/05/07
        All of our networks are moved except Elsie-Bannister. The mailservers moved as well and there may be a slight time delay for the world to recognize the new IP addresses.

        We are almost done with this switchout!!!!!!

      • Eureka is moved over Middleton-Maple Rapids is next
        08/01/07
        We are a little behind schedule but that is usually expected as you progress with a major switch like this.

        Middleton, Perrinton, Maple Rapids and Rainbow Lake will be switched over tomorrow morning.

        If you do not have a router please remember that you need to change the setti

    • July
      • Ovid is switched - Eureka is next
        07/26/07
        Ovid has been switched over, Eureka is next. St. Johns will be switched on Monday morning. Elsie, Middleton and Maple
        Rapids will move next week after St.Johns is done.

        So far everything has transferred well, couple of issues with switching DNS on some routers. also, remember a good

      • Ovid network next to move
        07/25/07
        We will be moving the Ovid network today after 5pm.

        As long as access is available to routers we will change the DNS settings and the transition will be fairly seamless. If you do not have a router or have remote access turned off (or a password we do not know), then these settings will n

      • Fowler and Pewamo networks completed on upgrade path
        07/23/07
        Fowler and Pewamo have been transferred over to the fiber backbone. If you locked us out of your router make sure to change your DNS server addresses.

        69.63.236.12 is the main server address
        10.10.22.12 is secondary

      • NEW Backbone arrives at Mutual Data!!!!!!!
        07/23/07
        Three plus years ago, ( I could write a book about how difficult it
        was to get fiber here in Clinton County), Mutual Data began its quest for a fiber based
        high speed connection for the Internet backbone. That "event" has
        happened. Not only do we now have a huge capaci

      • Ovid Power outage
        07/19/07
        Consumers Power has multiple areas with no power. Ovid is expected to have restored power in 12 hours from what we are being told.

        We will continue monitoring for proper power restoration.

      • Fowler power outage
        07/10/07
        Fowler lost power approx. 4:30-4:45 pm. This has exhausted the batteries at the Fowler Tower and currently is showing down.

      • Sunday backhaul problem
        07/08/07
        Our connection in Lansing has had an equipment failure at approx. 2:45pm.

        The ISP is working on repairing the link but no eta at this time.

      • Office outage
        07/05/07
        One of the radios that connects the office to the main backbone failed. Outage was approx. after 4pm to 6pm.

        All systems returned to normal mode after that.

    • June
      • Rainbow Lake Tower
        06/21/07
        One of the radios has been acting erratically since the last storm went through the area. We have been testing to narrow down the culprit and will replace a radio this morning.

    • May
      • Power Outage in East Lansing
        05/24/07
        There has been a power outage in East Lansing that is affecting our spam filter server. The company handling the server is working on a solution.

        This will delay inhbound mail to your accounts. Mail can be sent from our network with no delay.

        Support

      • Power outage on Sunday May 4th
        05/07/07
        Part of St. Johns lost power this afternoon ( approx. 6:10pm). Power
        was restored approximately 8pm. Unfortunately, the power surge damaged
        our AC power at the St. Johns silo. We installed temporary power and
        restored all systems at about 9:30pm.

        Once the electricians deter

    • April
      • brief bump in info superhighway
        04/23/07
        A routing issue popped up this morning around 9am. As of 9:20 it looks like it cleared up.

        This was located in Lansing, not in our network.

      • Power at office
        04/04/07
        Consumers Power is working on powerlines tomorrow, Thursday the 5th. Work is expected to begin at 8pm and extend till midnight. This only affects the main office location.

        We will be moving critical servers to backup/generator but less critical items will not remain powered up. Last time

      • New phone system installed
        04/04/07
        Last night a new phone system was installed. You might recall the old system crashed last December.

        We will still be tweaking it out but only during after hours.

    • March
      • Sluggishness on some sites noted
        03/16/07
        We are noticing that some websites ( Mapquest, Paypal etc) are very slow to load. Traceroutes are showing the issue may be downstream if it transits through Level3 facilities. We do not have any outage notices but have been watching network times for a few popular sites.

      • Vista upgrade?????
        03/02/07
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2007022

        The Most Annoying Things About Windows Vista .....

        From our perspective here at Mutual Data, you must have a router to run Vista. We will not offer tech support over the phone to set up a Vista PC. Having a router makes it plug and play.<

    • February
      • Spamfilter
        02/12/07
        The Barracuda spamfilter emails that are sent out when there are quarantine emails is sending an incorrect address. If you click on the link it takes you to a different Barracuda server and says the name and password are invalid.

        We are working to fix the link so quarantine access can be

    • January
      • Pewamo tower power outage
        01/14/07
        Saturday night approx. 11:30PM the Pewamo tower lost power. Power was restored and it was determined that the GFCI is failing at the tower. We will replace the GFCI during the week but do not expect to have any downtime when that occurs.

      • Fowler ethernet switch replaced
        01/04/07
        Thursday morning we replaced the ethernet switch at the Fowler tower.


        This repair was completed at approx. 10:30AM.

  • 2006
    • December
      • Updates
        12/23/06
        If you have a "favorite" stored for the Clinton County Federal Credit Union "eteller", please note they changed the addressing path this week.

        You can either modify the saved favorite to https://eteller.clintoncountyfcu.org

        or access their main website and r

      • Poisoned IP block update
        12/14/06
        Over the last couple days we have been working on a problem that some people experienced in the St. Johns, Ovid, or Fowler networks. Early today we determined that the ip netblock that is used in those networks was "poisoned" in some way. This is probably due to a virus or a malicious prog

      • phone system update
        12/14/06
        Our phone system died the other day, it was diagnosed as the
        voicemail section causing it to fail. Voicemail has been turned off till
        we can replace a part in the system. Our phones are ringing but
        will only ring a few times then the connection drops ( there's no
        vo

      • Phone system failed
        12/14/06
        To add to the fun this week, the phone system failed. We are working to return/fix the phone system as well.

        An alternate phone number to call is 989-224-1455 which usually is the fax, but the fax will be put offline.

      • email server updated
        12/13/06
        While troubleshooting a problem that some users in St. Johns/ Fowler/Ovid markets were having with sending email, the mailserver software was upgraded to eliminate any possible software problems. The new version is now requiring a full username before receiving mail. So if the account name for your

      • ICE STORM PROBLEMS
        12/01/06
        The ice storm is causing issues with some of the antennas in our network.

        Antennas that are "yagi" style will be most affected.

        Once the temps rise up the ice should melt off and normal operations will resume.

        We were able to clean off several antennas on o

    • November
      • Thursday Nov. 30- slowdown in Lansing
        11/30/06
        Our Lansing provider is handling a problem that is causing our traffic to be very sluggish this morning.

        We will continue to monitor, but have not had any updates.

        Barry

      • Happy Thanksgiving
        11/24/06
        Hope everyone had a great holiday. Our office will be closed Thursday and Friday.

    • October
      • Lansing Outage this morning 10-24-2006
        10/24/06
        The routing in Lansing failed approx. 7:45. This affected our traffic but was not a failure in our network.

        Network connectivity was restored approx. 8:45.

      • Welcome to the Mutual Data Support Blog
        10/18/06
        Greetings!

        As an effort to help make it easier for us to communicate to our clients what is happening at Mutual Data Services, we have instituted this blog.

        In the past we have tried using email lists but generally 30-40% of those messages did not get delivered or went to acco