Sarasota PC Monitor
Get to Know our Advertisers (01/03)
Jack Rabbit Internet Service
by Pete Theisen, Assistant Editor
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.Is it really 34% faster? "Actually," says Randall Santora, "it's money-back guaranteed to be 45% faster, I just haven't gotten around to changing the ad copy." Randall is the owner of Advanced Communications. He introduced Jack Rabbit dial-up Internet Access to his service lineup almost a year ago when he heard his customers complaining about the cost and service glitches they were having with broadband. Some of these same customers now say that Jack Rabbit is as fast as DSL.
Randall is a major presence in his small office, which he shares with his four office workers. No goofing off here, no sir, the boss sees your every move! As a visitor you walk in the door and you see the whole company. "The low overhead helps keep the prices of all of our services down", Randall explains. Keeps prices down? How's $7 a month for a 50-megabyte Internet storefront with 100 email addresses, including a do-it-yourself website design wizard? I didn't ask about the cell phone service, but they offer that, too.
Besides Randall, I met Carmine Lanius, the general manager, Patty McCafferty, the phone answering lady, Kim Lukehart, the graphics and web design lady and Marty Seehusen, who in addition to his role at Jack Rabbit is also "Marty on Mondays" radio personality on WTMY 1280 AM, 7 to 8 PM.
In addition to being the boss, Randall is also an inventor of software solutions. He wrote the software behind his Internet service and his Web Hosting service. Randall loves boating and NFL Football. Randall hails from Pittsburgh, PA and started Advanced Communications 10 years ago.
General Manager Carmine Lanius is a country-western girl from Mayfield, KY. She has two dogs, Clyde and Nikita, whose photos decorate her computer screen. Carmine also likes to ride horses.
Warm friendly customer service is the job of Patty McCafferty. Patty is from Cory, PA. She has a son, "Anthony", a dog, "Snickers", a cat and a fish. She likes to ride along with her boyfriend who drives a tow truck.
Kim Lukehart calls Peoria, IL home. She has an artistic talent and often creates CD cover graphics and Web Sites for rock bands. She shares her home with two chinchillas, a bird and a hamster.
Coming from Wilmington, DE, Marty Seehausen likes to do art and woodworking when he is not on the air or working at Advanced Communications. He showed me a really cool miniature carved dog.
In addition to these folks, there is also a tech person whom I did not meet who goes out and fixes customer's computers.
I love to ask ISP guys if I can use their service with my 486 with its 14.4 modem. I was astonished when Randall told me that his software makes the speed of both the modem and the computer a non-issue. The software disables the baud rate of the modem and compresses the upload and downloads into groups of 5 packets. I didn't try this to see if he was right but for $9.95 anyone can try it out. There are no pop-ups, no busy signals and if you sign up by the end of the month you can have that introductory rate for two years. ?
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Copyright 2003. This article is from the January 2003 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.
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