Mstar, a fiber-optic services company, has announced its partnership with DirectPointe to provide customers with remote help and safeguards for their PC. The companies will work together to offer Remote SOS (Service Optimization Service).

 

This new service will offer subscribers regular PC Care in the form of maintenance performed remotely by a technology professional. PC Care aims to protect computers from viruses, spyware and malware, and also includes disk cleanup, disk defrag, online backup and other standard maintenance procedures.

Customers will also be provided the ability to access the Remote SOS HelpDesk, which will provide on-demand computer help billed in 15-minute increments for most any computer type problems.

 

“Remote SOS is an incredible value for our customers,” said Kirk Tanner, Mstar’s chief operations and marketing officer, in a Thursday statement.

 

“The PC Care offered through Remote SOS will eliminate most of the desktop problems customers complain about. They’ll immediately notice a difference in their computer’s performance. It’s like having a brand-new computer every time you turn it on.”

Remote SOS will be powered by DirectPointe and will use screen-sharing technology to diagnose and solve problems and maintain customer PCs without ever touching the computer.

Using a bank-level 128-bit encryption, the program records all Remote SOS sessions for customer review.

 

To add increased security, the customer must initiate each session and has the ability to terminate a session at any time. The customer also has the ability to watch everything the Remote SOS technician does on the PC monitor.

 

“Thousands of DirectPointe customers have already benefited from this essential service” said Seth Bailey, Vice President of the Consumer Division at DirectPointe, in Thursday’s statement.

 

“It is like having the technology support services you get at work securely delivered to your computer at home.  We are excited to now offer this service to Mstar customers.”

 

Mstar and DirectPointe are partnering to respond to a significant need for consumers throughout the country. Many of these users often encounter small problems that they don’t know how to fix, yet aren’t significant enough to require major attention.

With Remote SOS, consumers will have the opportunity to call on a service that not only works remotely, but also enables the consumer to watch what is being done. For those of us who are somewhat computer illiterate when we get past Windows®, this ability is important in providing the satisfaction of the fix on our system.

 

Remote SOS is the newest service offered by Mstar. The company also provides IPTV, Internet and digital phone service over the UTOPIA and iProvo fiber-optic networks. Customers do not need to live in areas serviced by UTOPIA or iProvo to subscribe to Remote SOS. 

 

The promotional launch price will be $4.95/month.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.