Milk River Cable Club

You are a member of the Milk River Cable Club.  You are a part of a member owned co-operative that provides Cable TV and Internet to our members in the greater Milk River Area.

 

The Internet service you receive as a member of the club is a resource that is shared by all members of the club.

 

As we all live in a rural area, Internet access costs more to provide than what corporations in major cities must pay.  As members we all share in these costs as membership is our only source of income.

 

To make access fair for all our members and neighbours and to keep the costs of service low, please keep the following in mind:

 

• Internet capacity available to us is not infinite and is very costly.  Please avoid unnecessary traffic.  Leaving streaming video or audio running when no-one is using it is wasteful and increases costs of membership.
• Avoid Peer to Peer file sharing.  The costs to the club are high, it negatively impacts network performance and can represent a large security risk to you and others.
• Most members are residential level members.  Residential Internet is intended primarily for  common non-commercial uses like web browsing, email, gaming, Youtube, Facebook,  Wikipedia, chat, telecommuting etc.  Please refrain from applications that use heavy uploading such as Peer to Peer file sharing or offsite backup; these activities are intended for commercial level memberships or should be moved to servers in an urban area.
• Watch children when online, even older ones.  A majority of teenagers engage in questionable or illegal activities online.  Many parents are unaware of the activities their children engage in and the legal risk that poses to the family.
• Keep in mind peak times.  Not only are the resources of the cable club in high demand in the evenings, but so is the Internet as a whole.  Transfers between midnight and 6AM always go faster regardless of where one lives or what Internet service they are on.  Many programs will allow you to schedule large transfers to happen at these times while you are asleep.
• Nothing comes free.  Downloading apparently free music and video still costs the club in bandwidth costs.  The club operates as a non-profit and has no profits to pay these costs from.   The costs will always be shared by all members.

 

The Cable Club is managed by a board of directors.   These are local volunteers who are not paid for their time and effort.  They are our friends and neighbours who are working hard to ensure our community is not left at an economic disadvantage.  They are not technical experts but the club has contracted experts in the field to assist them.  Please do your best to support our volunteers.  They have a difficult job which is often a full-time paid position in larger communities.

 

The club has decided by a majority that Peer to Peer file sharing is not conducive to providing a reasonably priced Internet service to the community.  A small minority of users choose to engage in such activity and create problems for the functioning of the service for other users.  Users who use the service beyond what is fair for their membership may have their membership in the club revoked, service speed reduced or other actions.

 

If a cost effective way of allowing Peer to Peer file sharing can be found, the club may consider that at a future date.  Commercial providers deal with this issue by assessing additional charges or terminating service to the heaviest users.  Users who are not monopolizing access have no concerns and we thank them for their consideration.  If a user is using more than their share, we are happy to provide technical support on changing the needed settings to reduce the issue in future.  The club and it's contractors will always take a co-operative approach to bandwidth issues.  Punitive actions are only considered with members who do not reciprocate.

 

The Cable Club always welcomes input within it's membership.  As a member you have voting rights to help set the policies of the club and to ensure it is run in a financially sound manner.  You are encouraged to attend general meetings and volunteer to help keep this low cost service available to all members.

 

If you have any technical questions please feel free to call our technical support line at  1-866-344-7142.

 

If you have questions about these policies or how to help out with the club, you may talk to any member of the executive or the Club President, Victor Haddad at 403-647-2115.

 

Your neighbour,

 

Victor Haddad

President

Milk River Cable Club

The Milk River Cable Club offers a variety of methods and options on how to pay your bill.

The bill is for 2010, however you can pay the bill, monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually.  Whatever works with your budget.  You must keep the account current to within 2 months.

Our payment options are telephone/internet banking at CIBC and ATB.  (The Scotia Bank account had to be dropped).  We now offer Debit, Visa and Mastercard as well.

The Board of Directors have compiled a list of projects

to improve service.

1. Put a wind screen around the dish, this will help stop the pixelization that occurs from time to time.  Estimated cost of $3000.00 to be complete by the end of May.

2.  Provide a power backup in Coutts, Milk River and the Firetower.  In the event of a power outage at these locations, there would be limited internet disruption.

3.Investigate the possibility of Video on Demand, whether we can offer this service to cable customers.

4.  Replace main amplifier with new technology to give better stability to your cable system.

If you are having trouble, you can call the new Milk River Cable Club technical support line toll-free at 1 (866) 344-7142.