Stevens, 83, has been under a federal investigation for a 2000 renovation project more than doubling the size of his home in Girdwood that was overseen by Bill Allen, a contractor who has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska state legislators.

Allen is founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

Agents from the FBI and Internal Revenue Service started their search at the senator's home Monday afternoon, said Dave Heller, FBI assistant special agent. He said he could not comment on the nature of the investigation.

About 15 agents took photos and video of various angles of the house, including shots from the roof, and eventually entered it.

A law enforcement official familiar with the case confirmed the raid on Stevens' home was focused on records related to the ongoing VECO investigation. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

An e-mail statement issued by Stevens through his Washington, D.C., spokesman said federal agents had alerted his attorneys that they wanted to search his home.

Stevens, who has been in office since 1968 and is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history, said the interests of justice would be best served if he commented after the investigation.

"I continue to believe this investigation should proceed to its conclusion without any appearance that I have attempted to influence its outcome," Stevens said. "The legal process should be allowed to proceed so that all the facts can be established and the truth determined."

The Justice Department's probe into Allen's relationships has led to charges against state lawmakers and contractors. Last year, FBI raids on the offices of several Alaska lawmakers included Stevens' son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens.

Neither the U.S. senator nor his son has been charged.

Heather Szundy, 30, who lives across the street from Stevens' home and describes herself as a part-time resident, applauded the investigation.

"It's good," she said. "Cracking down keeps people honest. The government needs it."

Stevens has served since 1968 and is Alaska's most powerful elected official, responsible for bringing home billions in federal dollars in a state that lacks infrastructure, from road money to basic sewer and water systems in remote villages. Anchorage's international airport is named for Stevens and he has faced token opposition in recent elections.

Alaska's only U.S. representative, Don Young, also is under federal investigation as part of an on-going corruption probe, a federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press last week, commenting only on condition of anonymity. Part of the Young investigation involves his campaign finance practices, the law enforcement official said.

The investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Former VECO Corp. CEO Allen held fundraisers called "the Pig Roast" for Young every August for 10 years. Public records show Young received $157,000 from VECO's employees and its political action committee between 1996 and 2006, the Journal reported.

But for several years, the Vacaville-based ISP Castles Information Network, Inc. has been giving local businesses and residents an alternative. Offering dial-up, DSL and wireless internet connections, as well as Web hosting and design, Castles prides itself on being a quality, local ISP.

"If you go to a larger company, you're a number," said Jim Downey, president and CEO of Castles Information Network, Inc. "We're a local company. People can walk in the door and bang on the counter and yell at us if we've done something wrong."

It's that kind of personal attention - and, Downey points out, a real person on the other end of the phone - that has won Castles thousands of customers throughout California, mostly in Solano, Yolo, Contra Costa and Napa Counties, but even as far away as Honolulu and Panama City. Their customer base includes local companies, like Jackson Medical Supply, Caboodle Cartridge, and several outlet stores. Castles also provides Web hosting to several local non-profit organizations, including the Solano County Reading Association, the Solano Community Symphony, the Solano County Library Foundation, and the Vacaville Art League and Gallery.

The company began in 1985 as Castles Bulletin Board, then became Castles Information Network in 1993. The company incorporated in 1999, the same year the board of directors brought Downey to the company.

Today, Castles offers dial-up service in all of California, DSL connection in most of California, and high-speed T-1 connect all over the U.S. They offer 24-hour technical support as well as domain name registration.

Dial-up service costs $19.95 a month for unlimited access, and includes five e-mail addresses and 24-hour, bilingual technical support. DSL service is available for $21.95 with a one-year contract, going up to $29.95 after the first year.

High-speed wireless internet is available for $69 a month with a $249 installation fee. Web hosting begins at $9.95 a month, depending on the size of the Web site and bandwidth used per month. Web design begins at $250 and averages about $375. Downey said Castles uses a design system that allows customers to update sites themselves, rather than being dependent on a webmaster to make changes.

And, earlier this week, the firm unveiled a new service for small and mid-size businesses they've acquired through the company BlueTie. The service - modeled after more expensive Microsoft software - makes it easy for business owners to share files, sync up calendars, book flights and hotels, send reminders and more.

Downey says he loves being able to offer an alternative to the bigger companies. But he says the growth of bigger ISPs, and certain business agreements Castles has with AT&T, have made things more difficult in recent years.

For starters, Downey says Castles and other small ISP's like it are always struggling to compete with introductory offers the bigger companies have, even though bigger companies can increase prices dramatically after the introductory period is over.

Also, Castles and other small ISP's have to purchase circuits from AT&T in order to provide DSL to certain customers. But, at the end of 2009, Downey said AT&T will no longer be required by law to allow smaller companies to purchase those circuits.

Downey said purchasing the circuits from AT&T is the only way for small ISP's to offer DSL services.

While he believes it doesn't make financial sense for AT&T to pull the plug on the small companies, there is still some anxiety about what will happen to small ISP's in the future.

"We have a two-year window here," Downey said, adding that he wasn't sure "what the playing field will be like in two years, whether we'll even be able to compete."

Castles is a member of the California ISP Association (CISPA), which has allowed small ISP's to come together, pool resources, and share costs, as well as advocate for policies that would help keep them in business and compete with bigger companies.

Meanwhile, Downey said many smaller companies are developing the Web hosting and design sides of their business in anticipation of the possible changes. Others have opted to sell their customer base to companies like Earthlink rather than stay in business.

Still, Downey is optimistic, and believes the customer service and personal attention his company provides will win him loyalty from customers.

"If you're my customer and we're having lunch," Downey said, "I have to be able to look across the table and feel good about the services I provided for you."

Some customers "require a lot of hand-holding," he added. "AT&T is not going to do that."

ColoServe's data center facility also shares infrastructure with Verizon's sole San Francisco phone switching facility, including dual generators capable of producing four megawatts of power and enough on-site diesel fuel to run off of the electrical grid for more than two weeks, says the company. The data center is also completed by ColoServe's popular Screaming-Fast Network, which give customers instant access to over 45 major Internet networks in a single connection.

"Having a top-notch colocation facility with great bandwidth and available space in downtown San Francisco means we can offer our current customers more flexibility while ensuring prospective customers we can meet their needs," says John Keagy, president of ColoServe. "As their businesses grow, so can their data center space."

Postini, a San Carlos, Calif.-based vendor that sells email and messaging security and compliance tools has 35,000 customers. Its services include message security, archiving, encryption, and policy enforcement to protect a company's email, instant messaging, and other Web-based communications.

Under the terms of the agreement, Google will acquire Postini for $625 million in cash and Postini will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google, according to a press release the companies issued Monday morning. The deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter 2007.

"With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes. With the addition of Postini, our apps are not just simple and appealing to users -- they can also streamline the complex information security mandates within these organizations," said Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman of the board and chief executive officer, in a statement.

Postni's security tools are sold to companies in a hosted model. The vendor's Perimeter Manager service offers email content filtering, and spam blocking features. The software quarantines or tags suspicious email before it reaches a company's perimeter.

The search giant claims its popular line of applications, including Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets and Personal Start Page, has been adopted by more than 100,000 businesses to date. But Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise, admits security concerns have prevented some companies from embracing Google tools.

"By adding Postini products to Google's technology, businesses no longer have to choose -- employees get the intuitive products they want, and the company achieves the security and assurance it needs," Girouard said in a statement.

MobilePro Signs Definitive Agreement to Sell CLEC Division
MobilePro Corp. announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell its CLEC Division in a transaction valued at $30 million to United Systems Access Telecom, Inc., which does business as USA Telephone (http://www.savewithusa.com/). The sale will include cash of $21.9 million and $8.1 million in convertible preferred stock in United Systems Access paid in two tranches.

MobilePro's CLEC Division consists of the wholly-owned subsidiaries American Fiber Network, Inc. (AFN), CloseCall America, Inc. and the company's ISP businesses including Inreach Internet and Nationwide Internet. The company expects the sale of the ISPs to close within 10 days. The sale of AFN and CloseCall, which are subject to obtaining required regulatory consents and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in 90 to 120 days. Also, both the ISP sale and the sale of AFN and CloseCall require the consent of Cornell Capital to release its lien on the assets being sold.

Jay Wright, chairman and CEO of MobilePro Corp., said, "This transaction, which represents the culmination of a sale process MobilePro has run over the past three months and saw us receive inquiries from more than a dozen companies and multiple acquisition proposals, allows us to become a preferred shareholder in USA Telephone, a privately held telecommunications company with, in my view, superior management and financial backers. It also would allow us, upon closing, to pay off our debt to Cornell Capital and focus our efforts on our other operating divisions. Through our preferred stock position, we will have the opportunity to continue to share in the upside growth opportunity of our CLEC business going forward."