What
are the setup fees and monthly costs
involved?
BigTime charges a one time setup
fee depending on the size and type
of webhosting package ordered. The
full rate charts for available hosting
packages are shown on the Web
Hosting pages.
How am I
billed?
In most cases, BigTime invoices you via
regular mail. You can request a monthly statement
via email as well, at any time.
Special arrangements can
be made for custom billing
requirements.
BigTime accepts
Company
Checks, Personal Checks, Money
Orders,
and PayPal (paypal@bigtimewebdesign.com).
Just as you expect BigTime to provide your
services in a timely manner, BigTime expects you to pay your invoice in a timely manner.
How is extra
bandwidth billed?
BigTime maintains software on
every server and on the switches
to monitor individual website usage
and server-wide usage. Bandwidth
is billed per Gigabyte (GB) over
your monthly allocation, rounded
up to the nearest Gigabyte. Usually
between the 3rd and 5th of the month
you will receive your bandwidth
overage billing, if applicable,
for the preceding month's usage.
Are there
any hidden costs?
No. All costs are stated plainly
on our website. We do not hide fees
in fineprint, or in our terms of
service pages. The only costs that
are commonly found to occur beyond
your expected flat monthly rates
per service, are those due to increased
disk space or bandwidth usage. Pricing
for such is plainly stated on our
website. BigTime very often
will allow you to upgrade your packages
to the next size up, should you
see an increase in disk space levels
or bandwidth usage for the current
month, and not want to pay for such
additional usage. Disk space usage
and availablility, as well as estimated
bandwidth usage, is available to
you in the majority of the control
panel versions included with the
hosting packages.
Is there
a discount if I pre-pay for several
months in advance?
BigTime offers several discounted rates for advanced service. The majority of our clients pay this way, as it not only saves
money, but think of all those poor trees! Check out our hosting packages page for the exact amount of discount per package.
What happens
if I decide to leave BigTime
You are free to leave at any time. If we registered your domain name for you we will
ensure its availability to you.
Does my website
get a control panel?
Yes. Every BigTime web hosting
package comes with a web browser
based control panel. Depending on your hositing package,
the control
panel includes many features
including;
email configurations, chat rooms,
mailing lists, pre-installed cgi
scripts, databases, chat rooms,
and much, much, more....
What is
Cpanel™? Do you have a Demo?
CPanel™ is the brand name of the
web browser control panel software
that BigTime utilizes on its
web hosting packages. A demo of
the control panel can be found here.
How do I
set up my email?
BigTime web hosting clients
can set up POP Accounts,
Forwarders/Aliases,
& Auto-Responders in the Web
Browser Control Panel that comes
with every BigTime web hosting
package. This can be done by
yourself,
and without any assistance from
the BigTime staff.
How do I
upload my files?
All BigTime web hosting packages
allow the usage of FTP, Telnet,
SSH, File Manager, MS FrontPage™,
and other web development publishing
programs, to upload files to your
website.
How do I
transfer my domain name?
BigTime will attempt to file
the necessary electronic forms for
your domain name transfer with
InterNIC.
If BigTime is unable to file
such with your specific domain name
registrar, BigTime will send
you instructions on how to do such
yourself, including all necessary
technical details. Clients may opt
to not have BigTime handle the
domain name transfer, or to delay
doing such, as an option.
How much
assistance do you provide for my
website?
BigTime will assist you with
all support for services provided
directly thru BigTime. BigTime
will help you with basic settings
for your email software and ftp
client, as well as assist you with
using the web browser control
panel. If you have contracted BigTime for your design,
we will assist you in all phases of development.
It is normal for clients of this nature to purchase discounted
pre-paid packages of hours for this.
BigTime is not responsible for
teaching you how to use another
company's products. Example: BigTime
will assist you with the settings
for using MS Frontpage™, but we
will not teach you how to actually
use the product itself. You need
to contact the software maker in
such a situation, who provides tech
support for how to use their
product.
BigTime cannot even attempt
to support all the thousands of
software products on the market.
BigTime will attempt to provide
some tech support for the most popular
programs our clients use. BigTime
is not responsible for assisting
with your own programs and cgi
scripts. We've done a lot of research on this subject
and the scripts we offer as add-on modules are carefully selected for their
functionality and ease of use. BigTime
will provide support for any of these programs
or cgi script that we provide pre-installed
with your web hosting package, or as an add-on module.
If you choose to install your own
programs and cgi scripts on your
site, you are responsible fully
for installing them.
If you have not contracted us for design, BigTime
is not responsible for designing,
nor developing, your website, including
HTML and/or images. BigTime
will always attempt to give a quick look
at your design/development problem,
and offer a suggestion if it is
a small issue. Anything complicated
relating to design/development is
charged at our normally hourly fee of $50.
What if
I want to upgrade my website?
You may upgrade or downgrade your
BigTime web hosting package
at any time. You will be required
to pay the difference in the setup
fee for your current plan, and the
plan you are upgrading to, should
you decide to choose a larger plan.
You will then pay the new monthly
fee for the new account package
that you select.
May
I have some examples of some sites
hosted by you?
BigTimemakes
a sample
client page
available to the public on it's
website. This page has examples of hosting,
design, and add-on modules in action.
Does my
website have their own IP number
or is it shared?
This depends on the type of hosting
packages you order. Traditionally
our most affordable hosting packages
are shared.
BigTime
dedicated servers have the ability
to utilize IP based, or IPless,
virtual hosting configurations.
What are
the hardware specs of the servers?
The average shared server
is a QUAD XEON processor system, with
4048MB RAM, and RAID
hard drive(s). All BigTime
servers run spare hard drives for
backup requirements.
What is
the uptime?
BigTime strives to maintain
a 99.5% network and server uptime
service level. This uptime percentage
is a monthly figure, and does not
include any scheduled
hardware/software upgrades, nor "Acts of God".
Our definition of "Act of God"
includes; fire, flood, tornado,
earthquake, telco fiber issues
(ie...Verizon™
cutting a fiber line somewhere),
backbone peering point issues
(ie...UUnet™
having a router go down in Virginia
that wipes out internet service
for the entire East Coast), hard
drive failure (faulty hardware is
rare, but cannot be predicted nor
avoided), as well as network
floods, hacks, and attacks. If BigTime
fails to meet it's 99.5% uptime
guarantee, and it is not due to
one of the above reasons, partial
downtime credits will be made available
to each client, upon request, on
a case by case basis. BigTime
does not credit a full month's service
if we only have 99.4% uptime. This
would not be financially healthy
for BigTime, and in turn would
only negatively affect the service
level BigTime provides to
you.
"Partial refunds for partial
downtime" is our standard
policy.
Can I have
adult content on my website?
No...and ummm...no some more. This just does not fit my business model.
If this policy is disregarded your site will be shut down and there will be no refunds.
What if
my site breaks your "acceptable
usage policy" rules?
Users' sites may be suspended for
violations of policy, or if
extreme,
or second time offenders, sites
may be cancelled. Each occurance
is dealt with on a case by case
basis, and we try to work things
out with every client. Notifications
will be sent, if BigTime takes
any action on your account.
May I view
your Terms Of Service?
The BigTime terms of service
(TOS), including policy and service
guidelines, are available online
at:
http://www.bigtimewebdesign.com/terms.html.
Do you have
a Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
The BigTime terms of service
(TOS), including policy and service
guidelines, are available online
at: http://www.bigtimewebdesign.com/sla.html.
How long
have you been in business?
T he company has been in business
since September 19, 1995 as a design shop.
To provide better service for our clients, BigTime
entered the web hosting industry
in July 2003.
What if
the server my website is on gets
hacked or attacked?
Individually hacked websites are
rare. If such occurs, usually they
are a target for a reason; hate
sites, pirated software, etc...
BigTime does not host such
websites. If such materal is found on a BigTime
server, it is deleted immediately
and the user's account cancelled.
Usually the target is the whole
server itself. Hackers usually go
after a server just to say that
"they did", or to use
the server to bounce off of to hack
something more important. Rarely
are any users' files on the server
damaged, erased, or modified. For
this reason, once a hacker is
detected,
a server can usually be cleaned
up and the hacker locked back out
within a matter of hours. At that
time the server is restored to full
security levels, as if the hack
has never occurred.
Most hackers
get into a system thru valid user
accounts. We recommend you use complicated
passwords for your account. BigTime
strictly reviews all orders for
new clients, to make sure they are
legitimate. Unfortunately, some
fake orders do get thru the
system,
and that is one way a hacker can
gain initial access. BigTime
runs security checks on the servers
daily, so even if a hacker does
get in, they are found and dealt
with quickly. Most hackers are not
malicious, they are just playing
or testing their abilities. If an
individual attacks the whole
Data Center, measures are in place
to cut off such floods and attacks
automatically at the backbone level
and the router level. BigTime
also uses firewall technology to
fend off most common methods of
flooding and attacks to the
network.
Questions, concerns, comments, or help regarding our hosting that is not addressed here please contact:
info@bigtimewebdesign.com
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May 10, 2004
