This section describes the technical performance a family can expect from our servers and conferencing software, and it discusses technical support requirements.

General. The Potter's School is an education provider. Our tuition and fees pay teachers to provide high-quality curriculum, feedback and evaluation. At not much more than $10 per week, this level of personal service is an outstanding value even without live classes and other hi-tech features. While we do not focus on technology, we do use it to enhance education. To minimize the cost of using advanced technology we take a "98/98" approach to its implementation. By this we mean that more than 98% of our families will have a good conferencing and web site interaction experience over 98% of the time. This also means that due to the vagaries of computers, networks and the Internet we expect almost everyone to experience occasional trouble, and it means we regretfully anticipate that some (fewer than 2%) of our families will experience technological problems requiring them to make significant changes or repairs to their computer, network or ISP before everything works for them. For us to guarantee technological satisfaction beyond this "98/98" level would increase every family's costs by two or three times the current value, effectively charging 98% of our families for issues unique to the few other families. In practical terms, our "98/98" approach means that we do not commit to providing dedicated individual technical support. All that said, we do provide the most advanced technological enhancements and highest-quality technical assistance you will find in an on-line school. Further details of what a family can expect from our technology and technical assistance are provided in the following sections.

Servers and Network. Our servers are professionally hosted and professionally maintained. We operate our own servers for web hosting, conferencing and email, so we maintain our servers secure, our email virus free, and our server content family-friendly.

Conferencing Standards. On a properly configured fully functioning home computer, students in a live class can expect understandable audio with almost no breaks in the sound. The conferencing system is very stable, but may require occasional reconnects. To minimize bandwidth costs and keep our courses accessible to dialup modem users, we use video very little during class time, and when it is used the quality will depend on the internet connection speed of the sender and the receiver.

Conferencing Software Installation and Operation. Media-rich conferencing software is not like any other application typically found on a home computer. It uses every major subsystem on the computer at the same time. It employs complex web page scripting, and it uses multiple non-standard ports to connect. It uses an entirely different Internet transport protocol than web browsing, instant messenger or streaming media programs. To complicate matters further there is as yet no clear standard for conferencing technology. Despite these challenges, we have never seen the software to fail to work correctly with a reliable internet connection and a clean operating system that has not been modified too far from the original operating system and browser installation by other utilities and programs or by spyware and virus activity. We provide the conferencing software at no cost and we charge no support fees. We also provide families an opportunity to install and test the current version of software before they register for courses. Approximately 98% of our families install, configure and operate their software with little or no trouble. The remaining families incompatibilities with their operating systems, browsers, networks or internet connections that may require some expertise, effort and patience to resolve. We consider individual PC technical problems to be the family's responsibility to resolve, and we assume that families have access to local technical expertise to assist with installation, configuration, and troubleshooting of the conferencing software. We also assume that families are willing to do what it takes to make their PC ready to properly run the conferencing software, including reinstalling the operating system and browser into a clean hard drive partition in the unlikely event it becomes necessary. Though we will always help as best we can with resolution, we make no special allowances and provide no reimbursement for class time missed as a result of such problems.

Technical Assistance. To keep the cost of our courses as low as possible, none of our fees provide for dedicated individual technical support. When a problem manifests itself in a significant number of users, we work with those users and the software vendor to resolve that problem, and we provide full technical support for problems we consider to be due to the conferencing software or our servers. Otherwise, we assume individual problems to be a function of the client system rather than the conferencing software or our servers. Since we desire to make our courses as accessible as we can, we do provide technical assistance for individual problems as we have opportunity. However, we make no commitment in this regard, and we strongly recommend that all of our families have local expertise to help them restore their system if they become unable to access our conferences or web site services.