Internet Support FAQ

Yes we do! Click here for details.

Spraying a coating of RainX or even PAM will help keep snow/ice from building up on your antenna. You’ll need to do it when it’s mostly dry. If you would like for us to do this, please give tech support a call or send us an email.

We currently have transmitters or repeaters located at Awbrey Butte, Downtown Bend, Crooked River Ranch, Powell Butte, Cline Butte, Round Butte, Juniper Butte, Three Rivers and Grizzly Mountain. For more information, or to see what coverage looks like in your area, please refer to our Interactive Coverage Map.

Some customers are not interested in streaming video or other high bandwidth applications at the time of install, but as time passes, needs can change. In these cases, we can often change your service plan without having to visit your location, and thus without any upgrade fees. You’d just pay the new rate to enjoy the new level of service. In fact, we’ll let you try a higher tier plan for a week to make sure you’re happy before making any changes to billing.

Our highest level plans require different roof mounted radio equipment.  Current clients get a discount on installation of this premium level equipment. If your radio must be upgraded, we’d be happy to schedule that for you right away.  Just give us a call!

Finally, not all locations can get our highest level plans. Some difficult to cover locations may only be capable of our lowest speed levels. This is generally due to distance from or poor line of sight to one of our transmitters. We’ll deliver the best level of service your location is capable of so you can use the applications you enjoy most.

No, you may not share service with your neighbor.

Our business model revolves around individual customer businesses and households paying for the service tier which fits their needs. We have many service tiers, so if you are paying for more internet than you use, you should encourage your neighbor to get their own service (and enjoy the referral credit) and possibly downgrade your own service to suit your needs.

One of our largest costs in providing internet service is in maintaining quality internet connectivity and supporting our customers if something goes wrong. Multiple unrelated households sharing a single connection tend to multiply their own service problems and they are especially difficult and taxing to support.  For this reason, customers found sharing service with their neighbor are violating our Terms of Service and may have their account suspended or terminated.

Our service is most accurately described as Fixed Point to Multi-Point Wireless.  What this means, is that each piece of roof mounted equipment on a customer’s home is pointing to one of our transmitters in order to get internet connectivity to their property without relying on a phone or cable line buried in the ground.

In order to provide wireless access throughout your home, a WiFi (short for wireless field) router is needed.  This will allow you to connect laptops and mobile devices within range. We can also provide, install and configure this equipment for you. Please contact us for more information.

If installed properly, the outdoor antenna and cable running into the house should provide years of service through all weather conditions that are typical in Central Oregon. Webformix warranties its installation work, but we cannot warranty work done by any third party, including the customer.

Power cycling your equipment

Sometimes electronic equipment needs a little break. Often connectivity issues can be solved by the trite, yet true Step One of troubleshooting “Have you tried turning it off, then back on?” Here is the proper procedure for powering your system down, then getting it back up and running.

1) Power down your device

The first step is to power down the offending computer, tablet or weather control machine that is experiencing connection issues. This will allow the device’s wireless card to reset too. Leave your device off for now.

2) Unplug your wireless router from power

This can be done by either removing the round black barrel connection from the back of the router, or removing the power plug from the power strip. Leave this unplugged while we…

3) Power down the outdoor radio/antenna

We use a variety of different technologies, but they all have one thing in common. The Power over Ethernet (or PoE) adapter allows power as well as data to be passed over an Ethernet cable to the outdoor gear. The easiest way to remove the outdoor gear from power is to trace the Ethernet cable as it comes in through the wall and unplug it from the PoE. Alternately, you can remove the PoE itself from it’s power strip.

4) Wait one full minute

You’re on your own for this one.

5) Plug in everything in the reverse order you unplugged it.

First the outdoor radio/antenna, then the wireless router and finally the offending device. Ideally, you should give each piece it’s own full minute to wake up and start doing it’s job.

If you continue to experience problems, don’t hesitate to get in touch at 541-385-8532

Bypassing your router allows you to connect a single computer to your internet connection for testing purposes. Troubleshooting computer problems is best done with as few possible points of failure as possible. The router itself can be the source of the problem, or perhaps one of the many devices connecting to the router such as computers, consoles, phones or tablets. By bypassing the router, it is easier for us to figure out where the problem is.

1) Uplug power from the router. All the lights on the router will go out.
2) Disconnect the internet from the router. The internet cable is the one connected to the “WAN” port. Often times a router will have 4 ports labeled 1-4. The internet will be connected to a separate port from these.
3) Connect the internet cable (one you just unplugged) and connect this cable directly to your computer.

That’s it! You are now connected directly to the internet with this computer.

The Basic plan is suitable for many activities on the internet at the maximum speeds our network is capable of from your location. Streaming is a bandwidth intensive application requiring a significant amount of sustained bandwidth. Our Fairshare Policy helps us maintain proper levels of service for many types of customers. We believe that those who do not stream should not be required to pay the way for those that do. If a customer simply wants to browse the internet, use apps like Facebook, listen to music, play games, use email, VOIP (phone over internet) and chat with friends, we believe they can do so without paying for the streaming premium, as video streaming uses a particularly large percentage of network resources. If you would like more detail, give us a call.

There are many parts to your home network.  The following is a very basic breakdown of some of the different components and what they do.  Your Wifi router is a device which serves as an access point for your wireless devices.  The router part allows you to use more than one internet connected device at a time by “routing” these connected devices through one internet pipe (your connection). A video streaming player like Roku, Apple TV or Google Chromecast is a device which connects to your TV and wirelessly connects to the internet. These devices allow you to watch video from sources like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime to your TV to watch movies, shows, documentaries, sports and other content. Many computers have wireless functionality built in, but some do not. For those that don’t, a USB wireless dongle that simply plugs into a USB port of a computer can add wireless to your computer so that it can connect to the router without a cable. For further information give us a call.

Our Fairshare policy guides our network management practices. Our single streaming plan has but one purpose: provide our customers with good quality streaming, but not HD. The purpose of these plans and our interest in enforcing their use is to help our customers get the level or service they are paying for. The single streaming plan works great for a single good stream. If yours is not meeting your needs, give us a call. We’re happy to help!

That depends.  If you have a “regular” router, then yes, you can.  If you have an old DSL or proprietary router, it will not function on our network.  Please bear in mind, there are many different manufacturers and models of routers out there.  Some of our users have purchased and manage their own routers themselves without a hitch, but some run into problems.  If you have questions about whether or not your router will work on our network, give us a call.  We also sell Wifi routers, install them for you and provide warranty and support.  Feel free to inquire.

That’s a bit of a toss up.  Getting us on the phone is the best way to determine whether we can provide you service.  Trees can be problematic, but our gear can sometimes shoot through them depending on your proximity to one of our many transmitters.  Sometimes we’re able to find a place on your roof that will shoot over the trees and avoid the issue entirely.  There are places in Central Oregon that are very thick with tall evergreens.  These areas can be problematic, especially when ice and snow set in.  It’s almost always worth a call, though.  Try us!

Internet TV, also known as video streaming, functions in a fundamentally different way than cable TV. Cable TV sends programmed channels to set-top boxes. Programming is fixed, shows come on at a specific time, etc. Streaming simply gives you access to an entire database of content. For example, Netflix gives it’s users access to The X-Files in its entirety. That’s 9 seasons and 202 episodes. As a Netflix user you can select any of these episodes at any time and watch it at your leisure. You can pause a show if you have to pee instead of holding it!  There are many differences, however. To read more about them read our Streaming Guide.

Yes. You will need a switch or wireless router if you don’t already have one.  We can sell you one that we will warranty and support, or you are welcome to provide your own.  This will allow multiple computers to use the internet connection at once.  The challenge is managing what users are doing on these computers. For example, if everyone is using bandwidth hungry applications on these computers, the internet can feel “slow” for everyone because there’s not enough available bandwidth. If this appears to be the case regularly, give us a call and we’ll see what can be done.

Central Oregon has its share of power issues. Heavy snows and unpredictable weather and lightning storms can cause problems for residents. Electricity is volatile. Your electronic equipment is built to adapt to some manner of inconsistent power, but damage can result if the current spikes during a storm. The best thing you can do is protect your equipment with either a surge protector or UPS (battery backup). Surge protectors are inexpensive and effective, but do not confuse them with “power strips” or “power taps.” Either of those two simply give you more to plug into. They do not protect against power surges.  If needed, Webformix has surge protectors for sale during installation, or if we’re in the neighborhood we can drop one off.

As a wireless internet service provider (WISP) we occasionally have to deal with issues related to weather.  The vast majority of the time customers do not experience interruption in internet service due to weather concerns, but sometimes a lightning storm, extremely windy conditions or thick icy buildup can cause problems.  We’ve done extensive testing with our wireless equipment, both indoors and out, and we’ve found that severe weather conditions can sometimes cause the internet to slow down, but rarely does it cause it to stop completely. This typically happens to clients that have a weak signal to begin with, or have service that needs to penetrate large numbers of trees.  Rain, snow, sleet, hail and other inclement weather have proven to have little to no effect on signal strength.

Did you just illegally download Game of Thrones or any other original show, movie or hot commodity?  Then don’t be surprised if you receive a Copyright Infringement Notice.  The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) as well as individual production companies are actively trying to reduce online piracy.  The process starts with an Infringement Notice being sent to an ISP (Internet Service Provider, in this case Webformix).   We are required to serve the notice, so don’t shoot the messenger.  Also, please be aware that although at the moment legal action against offenders is sparse, occasionally someone does get singled out.  If these notices are followed by an actual subpoena, we are required by law to provide their lawyers with your name and contact information.

We advise that you find safer ways to get the content you’re looking for!

Check out our Online Streaming Guide for suggestions.

When you use a wireless solution, security is a very important issue to consider. That is why Webformix encrypts all traffic to your home installation using AES cryptography. AES is resistant to all known forms of eavesdropping. We also use firewalls, spam and virus filters, intrusion detection systems, and plain old IT know-how to protect our customers’ online interests 24/7. So, while it may be easy to deploy a non-secure wireless solution, Webformix service is one of many examples of how a wireless solution can be highly secure.

We do NOT offer email service, but we highly recommend other free services not tied directly to your internet service provider.  Some examples would include:

Gmail
Hotmail (now called Outlook)
MSN
Yahoo

This way, even if you move to Antarctica, you won’t have to change email providers.

We currently do not offer roaming service.

What we currently provide is called “fixed-point” wireless service.  That means dedicated radio/antenna equipment is installed on your property (most commonly on the roof or eaves of your home or office) to obtain internet connectivity from our transmitter, and an Ethernet cable then brings that service into your home. Call us at 541-385-8532 to get started today!

Most likely, your computer is currently set up to delete messages from our server once its downloaded them into an email client such as Outlook Express, Outlook 2000, or Outlook XP. Webmail only displays messages that are currently on our server. If you’re interested in having a broader range of messages displayed in Webmail, you can configure your email client to ‘leave a copy’ of your messages on the server for a specific number of days.

Yes we do.  For 1 year after the date of purchase, if you experience issues with the router we will replace it free of charge.  After the 1st year we will replace it at our cost.

A site survey allows us to determine if we can provide you wireless internet service. There is no fee for performing this survey if we feel it’s necessary.

In most cases a preliminary examination using Google Earth and other mapping tools will allow us to determine whether a site survey is required.  If not we can go ahead and put you on the schedule for an installation.   Our on-site tech always has the final say in whether an installation is feasible.   If for some reason it isn’t, there is of course no charge for the visit.

If the site survey does not indicate a reliable connection, and either you or Webformix decide not to follow through with the installation, then it’s only a quick visit with zero cost to you.

You are also protected by our 30 day Money Back Guarantee if you are dissatisfied for any reason. Try us out risk free!

Give us a call today!  541-385-8532

Programs like Outlook XP, Mozilla Thunderbird and Apple Mail are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.  Cloud based services are more reliable, secure, and available from any computer.

For other email client programs use the following settings:

If you require additional assistance with these programs, we would be happy to help at our regular consulting rates.

Just give us a call at 541-385-8532

The LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) on the back of the wireless equipment help our technicians install and align the unit for best signal and troubleshoot problems. On many installations our technicians will configure the unit to not use those lights however, so do not be alarmed if they are always off in your installation.

Our service allows for multiple computers to be connected via one customer account. To do so, you will need to install a router to split the connection to all of your computers. Your connection speed will then be shared among the computers. So, if both are accessing the internet at the same time you may notice that each one only gets a portion of the bandwidth and speed.

The likelihood of the outdoor antenna being hit by lightning is very slim indeed. The majority of the housing is plastic, and there are safety components installed that will burn out like fuses in the off-chance that lightning should hit the unit. The unit may be damaged and need to be replaced, but it will prevent the lightning from harming your computer. If you’re concerned about this issue, we suggest that you install an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), and run all equipment through it. Contact Webformix for more information or if you’d like for us to install a recommended UPS.