Undeliverable Mail Notifications - Recently spammers have been sending more undeliverable junk mail with spoofed sender addresses. This has increased the amount of "backscatter", or delivery status notifications (DSN) about mail you didn't send. This occurs because recipients have their mailservers misconfigured to accept undeliverable mail and then send a DSN, rather than reject the undeliverable mail with an error code during the SMTP transaction. It is possible to configure rules in programs like Outlook to filter DSNs (including legitimate ones).

Errors sending mail via AT&T/Yahoo - If you have AT&T DSL and are using Yahoo's outgoing mailserver to send mail, Yahoo may now require you to verify your KWOM email address.

DSL - Our DSL service area has expanded to include DeKalb, Sycamore, Cortland, Maple Park, Genoa, Kirkland, Monroe Center, Rochelle, Shabbona, Waterman and Hinckley. We offer features that business DSL customers need like static IP addresses and dry loop DSL. We can install the equipment and integrate it with your internal network, or just ship preconfigured equipment, or we are happy to work with your IT staff or outside consultant.

Dialup - You may want a dialup account even if you can get broadband. Your dialup account can be used anywhere there is a phoneline (home, work, travel) unlike cable and DSL which only work at one location. With dialup you are free to switch your phone company, and we don't hit you with teaser rates, annual contracts, or early termination penalties. Unlike AT&T we don't block port 25, so you can send mail through your company or webhost mailserver. And if you just want dialup as a backup when your DSL is down, we have $4.95/month occasional use accounts.

Free Phone Support - Read the fine print before switching to a discount dialup service that may charge $1.95 per minute to your credit card for "live" customer support. We still offer free phone support from techs who don't read from a script. Unlike the national ISPs we haven't outsourced our tech support overseas, you'll be talking to a KWOM employee right here in Chicago. Unlike virtual ISPs reselling wholesale dialup, we still operate our own dialup servers, so our techs don't have to guess what is going on and waste your time.

Local, National and Toll-Free Access Numbers - We have 44 local access numbers in the Chicago area on our own dialup network. For occasional travel, we have toll-free access in the US and Canada. And we support both POP mail and webmail so you can access your email from any computer with Internet access.

We may not be the cheapest but ... Unlike many large ISPs we don't have hidden charges, and we don't make extra money off you through advertising or selling your information. For example, when we say "free modem", we don't mean a mail-in rebate after 3-6 months and you still pay sales tax, shipping and handling. We mean we ship you a modem at no charge. We don't show you ads, or sell your "clickstream data", or sell your contact information to advertisers. We don't use "DNS redirection", which shows you ads if you mistype a URL. And we don't jack up your price after the first few months, or add charges to the bottom of the bill disguised as taxes or fees.

Pay by Check or Credit Card - The national ISPs typically want your credit card, but you may want to receive an invoice and pay by check. We will send invoices for quarterly, semiannual or annual renewals. You can mail a check, or authorize a one-time charge to your credit card. Of course we can charge automatically to your credit card if you prefer.

Email Filtering - We offer optional spam and virus filtering, which will quarantine about 95% of unwanted email before it gets to your mailbox. This premium filtering service by Postini is highly configurable and allows you to check your quarantined messages for the past 2 weeks in case you think one was falsely blocked. No software or configuration changes are needed on your computer, we do everything at our end.

* monthly cost when paid annually