Socket completes acquisition of MAAIN

May 20, 2003– Socket Holdings Corporation recently completed the migration of Internet users from the Mexico-Audrain Area Information Network to Socket’s Internet service, thus completing the acquisition.

Mexico’s city council voted to sell the service as they felt the equipment was outdated and did not want to spend the money to upgrade it. City Manager Tanna Parish noted that other competition in the area offered better service and that now was a good time to get out of the business. In addition, MAAIN had a deficit fund balance of around $21,000.

During the migration there was no interruption of service and customers were able to keep their email addresses. Socket will retain MAAIN’s pricing for a minimum of one year. In addition, former MAAIN customers will now be able to take advantage of greatly enhanced services such as anti-spam filtering and technical support available seven days a week.

MAAIN was formed in 1996 as a joint venture between the City of Mexico, Audrain County Commission and the University of Missouri Extension system to offer Internet Service and maintain a web site with area information where there was none. Eventually the City became the ‘sole proprietor’.

“We feel the migration went very well, we had full cooperation from the city, and minor hurtles to overcome with only a few users.” stated Greg Baker, Director of Marketing at Socket.

This was the second transition of public information network users onto Socket’s network as the cost to satisfy customer’s wants and needs increases. The first was SCAN, which included users from Willow Springs to Winona in Southern Missouri.