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A message from the
company president:
So, who is EvenLink? And how can their prices be soooo low?
The partners of EvenLink
are primarily those who operated and founded one of the area's previous
Internet Service Providers, SunLink (founded in 1995). SunLink became one
of the area's leading providers of full service access to the net offering
dial up, dedicated, ISDN, frame relay, web design, web hosting, and T-1
service to most of the old 717 area code and the newer area code 570 before
we were purchased by a large national provider in March 1999.
We feel we were a huge
success by the overwhelming demand for our service. Sure we made some
mistakes, and things weren't perfect but there sure were a lot of you who
had our service and liked it a lot. In fact, even through a pretty
aggressive marketing campaign, more than 50% of our customer base came from
satisfied customers referring their friends, neighbors, and relatives to
us. That, in itself says a lot!!
When we sold SunLink, the
new company, OneMain.com kept their promise to continue to offer a higher
level of customer satisfaction. Their business plan was the same as ours,
to provide the highest levels of customer service and to continue to bring
advancement in technological services to our local communities when the
larger providers simply did not care to do so. But then, due to the high
flying stock market prices of NASDAQ of the early 1990’s, OneMain.com then
decided to sell out as well. That's when our old customers, including
myself, ran into some major malfunctions with being integrated into the
national provider.
It was very disappointing
to both personally and professional experience the transition nightmares that followed with
that merger and to hear some of the very dramatic problems which occurred in
households and businesses within our area directly from our old customers.
Just before the merger
took place, we thought WOW this is great, having a national company
interested in our small part of
Pennsylvania. We were looking forward
to higher levels of customer service, new products, services, and
advancements in communications that could have a big effect for the entire
Northeastern region of our state. When the integration occurred, ALL of the
founders were shocked at the complete degradation of quality customer
service. And to boot, they raised their prices to $23 per month!
This was the prime example
of how being bigger doesn't mean that things will be better. As I said
previously, yeah we made our mistakes, and I'm not saying that we were the
best. But I knew that we could do an “Even” (hint, hint) better job than
the large national ISP.
This is when my family and
I decided to begin another provider. My non-compete agreement was up and I
could not wait to get back to doing what I loved best. Offer “even” better
customer service. “Even” faster, more reliable modem connections. And,
with “even” lower prices. We knew we had the experience and expertise to do
it again, and why not? I sure didn't want to put up with crashing systems,
30-60 minute hold times with customer service, and no results after waiting
to speak to someone, slow connections, and pay higher prices? No way!
This is exactly why we
named this entity EvenLink, which I must thank my wife Tara for. Thanks
Tara
for listening to our
debate on naming the company. Night after night, checking for decent
available domain names seemed nearly impossible. We were looking for that
elusive name we could market effectively, you know something pretty easy to
remember, nice and short, after all, all our new customers will be using our
name everyday in their E-mail address after what has become the most used
key of the late 20 century, the shift 2 key, the @ symbol.
Tara,
listened to us
run through dozens of names, some of which this paper would not allow me to
print, some were funny, strange, and some almost made it but weren’t quite
right. And then it happened, that moment of brilliance, “how about
EvenLink”! “You guys keep saying your connections are “even” better, your
service is going to be “even” better, and your prices are going to be “even”
lower. And the Link part ties in with the old company name.
So how about those low
prices? Well it's pretty simple. With our years of experience in running
an ISP, we know what it takes to make this type of business a success. We
know which equipment to buy to provide the fastest, most reliable
connections, what services to purchase from major telecommunication
providers, and how to support you, the customer. We also know that it takes
dedication, commitment, and sometimes personal sacrifices need to be made to
get things going and to get the job done.
I would also like to thank
our staff; they have been doing a very good job since our inception.
Everyone here is excited about providing the best support and service
possible. And that's what makes this company different than other
providers. Sure half of it is our equipment, but the most noticeable part
is that first impression and that comes from those who work here. They want
to make a difference in our community by providing Internet services that
the public can rely on.
Sure enough, since our
inception, EvenLink’s predominant growth factor has been word of mouth
referrals, just like the old SunLink. To date, we have gained more than and
maintain over 10,000 customers in the 570, 610, and 717 area codes. We
operate two facilities. In Sunbury our offices are located at 650 Champ
Avenue, and our other office is at
38 South 8th
Street
in
Lebanon.
When we began our
operations, we focused exclusively on providing dial-up access. Now, we
have included several FREE features with all accounts at EvenLink. They
are: Virus Protection for all your E-mail transactions incoming and
outgoing. Spam Filtering again for E-mail to block those nasty unwanted
messages in your mail box. A local start page (start.evenlink.com), for
your web browser that you can set to your hometown to have access to things
like local news, weather, and yellow page-type listings. This page is also
customizable to set the format of the page up the way you want, and with the
colors you want. We have also added a webmail server (webmail.evenlink.com)
which allows you to check Email anywhere in the world from a computer with
Internet access and a web browser. We have also implemented a website for
our customers to maintain their own account information (customer.evenlink.com).
Here they can add their own E-mail boxes, make a payment, view invoices,
change their address, and much more.
One of most recent
announcements and one we are most proud of is EvenLink has officially
launched our first broadband connection for the home consumer with high
speed DSL in our
Lebanon
area. We are very excited
about the possibility of DSL and how much faster this type of connection is
for both the home and business. Speeds start at 768K down and 768K up and
the price is just $17.45 per month! That’s up to 50 X faster than what some
people used to connect with on a 28.8 modem. It really is unbelievable to
see speeds like this and for a price like this. I can’t tell you how
impressive that is. It really will be interesting to see how far technology
is going to advance over time with the way things are going. I hope we can
provide DSL in most areas by the end of this year, or earlier.
Thank you for your time in
reading this and I hope that you are willing to give us a try to experience
first hand what a higher quality, family owned and operated local company
can do for you.
Ben Amerman
President/Co-Owner of
EvenLink, LLC |
