Wednesday, May 9, 2007

IKANO Communications Secures $16.5 Million in Funding

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – IKANO Communications, the nation’s largest provider of private-label Internet services, announced that it has secured a $16.5 million credit facility from Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc.

IKANO has entered into the agreement with Hercules to establish a senior secured loan facility in the total amount of $16.5 million. On April 19, 2005, the initial closing, IKANO immediately drew down $5.0 million of the line. IKANO will utilize the net proceeds to fund acquisitions, including the recent purchase of the subscriber base of Amerion, a Washington state-based Internet Service Provider. IKANO will seek additional opportunities for the remaining amounts under the line.

"We are thrilled to have Hercules Technology on board as a capital provider,” said Henry Smith, IKANO president and CEO. “This funding will enable us to complete a number of key acquisitions including Internet Service Providers and related companies.”

During the past year, IKANO has purchased the subscribers and some related assets of approximately 15 Internet Service Providers.
IKANO partners with Internet Service Providers to help reduce operating costs, increase revenue and expand geographic reach/product offering. IKANO’s private-label platform supports turnkey dial-up, DSL, VoIP, wireless access solutions, email/webmail, IM, hosting, billing, branded customer service/technical support, and automated accounting.

IKANO is an Inc. 500 company, with more than 500 business clients and 300 employees. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, IKANO has additional offices in Logan, Ohio; Toronto, ON; and Pasco, Washington.

About IKANO
Stemming from the classical Greek word meaning, “to enable,” IKANO is the market-leading enabler of private-label Internet services. IKANO partners with Internet Service Providers to help reduce operating costs, increase revenue and expand geographic reach/product offering. IKANO is the parent company of SISNA, one of the nation’s original Internet Service Providers; Interhop/auracom, offering ISP franchises and consumer Internet services throughout Canada; and HOTSPOTZZ, one of the largest private providers of Wi-Fi hot spots. IKANO served as the official network provider for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. For more information visit http://www.ikano.com.

About Hercules Technology Growth Capital
Hercules Technology Growth Capital is a leading specialty finance company focused on providing growth capital to technology and life sciences companies at all stages of development. Hercules Technology investment professionals have 145 collective years of experience in venture capital, operating, specialized technology lending, acquisition finance and leveraged leasing experience. Hercules Technology has offices located in Palo Alto, CA.; Boston, MA.; and ChicagoArticle Submission, IL. Additional information can be found at: http://www.herculestech.com.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debbie LaBelle
IKANO Communications
Marketing & PR Director
(801) 415-8076
dlabelle@ikano.com

Merchant Accounts: Points to Consider

Okay so you want to accept credit cards from your customers, and are interested in establishing a merchant account. Whether you own a brick-and-mortar retail store, mail order outlet, or internet shopping operation, there are a few things to consider when choosing a credit card processing provider.

First of all, you should make a list of several providers that offer the features you want, then compare the variable fees that may differ depending on the company you deal with. These fees include things like set-up, cancellation, and monthly minimum, and may be negotiable based on your unique circumstances.

Once you have determined the what your business will be charged for its merchant account, it’s often a good idea to do a few sample calculations to work out your total credit card processing costs during a good, bad, and average month.

Finally, you should read and double-check the contract, including small print and detailed terms. Don’t sign anything until you are confident that you understand all the fees, minimums, termination clauses, and other details. It’s important to keep in mind that merchant account providers won’t go over every single point with every single customerScience Articles, and that it is ultimately your responsibility to read and understand the terms.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeremy Maddock is a successful webmaster who manages a number of informative websites, including one about corporate financial services.

Effective Online Logo Designs

For those individuals seeking inexpensive logo designs, look no further, online logo designs fit the bill very nicely, thank you. The Internet truly can be your best friend, especially when you're starting up a small business. I run my own business and was looking for an online logo design service provider. I managed to get in touch with several people through a simple Internet search. The artistry and service levels vary greatly as did the fees, but that is to be expected. I actually decided to seek out free online logo designs to see what I could come up with. Yes, that's right to free.

I actually found a great deal of services. Surprisingly, there were what if you services provided free online logo designs. I was actually quite surprised. One of the best I have found is cool text. This is an online logo design provider that can issue a simple yet elegant logo designs. The process is pretty cut and dry actually. The style, color and design of the logo are all modifiable so that you may customize them as you see fit. Your simple and effective online logo design is ready for download and subsequent use. It sure beats the heck out of messing around with an expensive software applications to try and create your online logo designs.

Of course there are some drawbacks with such online logo designs. For starters, you must choose which template that suits your needs and the choices can be quite limited. Also, you cant create a really elaborate, professional looking logo, as the online logo design process is built to be very basic. So forget about online logo designs incorporating two or three lines of text and your favorite photograph. They are really created to get up as an online logo design fast and clean with no muss and fuss.

There are thousands of such sites where you can get free online logo designs. It is hard to fathom why someone would take the time to create and distribute these for no charge. But in actuality, the purpose of free online logo designs is to give you a little tedious of what can be done and then sell you a product. There's nothing new or unsavory about that practice. Frankly, some of the logos that these free online logo design sites offer are too basic to be used for any practical business.

The truth isPsychology Articles, that many people actually decide to get their online logo designs done professionally when they see what they can have? It really is wonderful to have a choice of free online logo designs or professionally crafted logos.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Morgan Hamilton offers his findings and insights regarding the world of online shopping. You can get interesting information here at Online Logo Design

All About Direct TV Test Cards

The Direct TV test card, a small electronic chip, inserts into the TV receiver and serves the main purpose of identifying and match the customer to the service provider. Each of the test cards has a unique code allocated to them which identifies the customer to the service provider.

This credit card size access card works as an auxiliary processor to the receiver for billing, security, encryption, decryption, and other purposes. You may be familiar with the test cards, as it enables you to make use of the Pay Per View programming.

The Direct TV test card is linked to the service provider’s computer through their land-based telephone line. This access card contains all the necessary information about the type of subscription and is essential for activating the program. With this connection, subscribers’ additional billing information, like Pay Per View for sports, movie, etc programming is mirrored to the company’s receiver and to the computer network. Now and then, some advertisements are found touting Direct TV test cards at tempting low prices. They usually promise that their cards can provide their customers access to almost all channels available on the system. It is done so by reprogramming or removing the blocks of copy-written software, software which is used for decrypting all the channels available on the system.

All these advertisers actually sell is pirated test cards which cost them practically nothing. Because these cards access the programs through some other genuine service providers systems, you are actually stealing programming when you use these pirated test cards. This unavoidable problem of these cards of linking TV set through some unsubscribed service providers system to access to the satellite transmissions provides the service providers the opportunity to command the control over the services of those unsubscribed service consumers.

The service providers can easily get to know through their system that people are using their systems without their permission. The piracy was rampant until a few years ago but the Direct TV has now been able to improve the security of these cards and is cracking down on pirators through the law. The service providers continuously hassle these users in order to force them to subscribe to their service. They hassle these pirated card users so much that they almost make these cards useless. Therefore these users are ultimately forced to subscribe to their service. These illegal test cards; in some cases; may even be incompatible with the system with which it is used or sometimes may work only for a short period. Hence, the hassle of buying and selling an illegal Direct TV test card is much like gamblingPsychology Articles, and probably isn’t worth your time in the first place.

Direct TV has introduced the following cards so far:a) P1 Cards: Was used until 1997. It featured the picture of a satellite on it.b) P2 Cards: Was introduced in 1996 and was in existence until 2002.c) P3 Cards (Hu cards): Introduced in 1999 and featured the picture of a football player on it in the front so it is also known as football card.d) P4 Cards: These current generation P4 cards were introduced in 2002 in the market. It has been highly successful over the P3 cards in controlling the piracy. It is also known as access card #4.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Written by David Johnson. Find more information on the how to Get Direct TV Deals