 |
General
Questions |
|
| |
Is there a trial
period or money-back guarantee? |
Each HostCONCEPT Multi-Shared Hosting order with annual prepayment
and above carries a 15 day money back guarantee. If you are not
completely satisfied with our service, you may cancel your account
within fifteen (15) days of your order date and receive a refund
(less USD 10.00 processing fee). Add-on service fees, setup fees,
private label hosting, host reseller and renewal orders are not
refundable. |
| |
What is CPanel™? Do you have a Demo? |
CPanel™ is the brand name of the web browser control panel software
that HostCONCEPT utilizes on its servers. Due to security reasons,
we do not have a working demo but we have screenshots that can be
viewed here. The software can be used to control a single website by
an end-user, a block of space for a reseller account with control
over their clientele, as well as the whole backend operation of a
complete server using the WebHostManager™ backend. |
| |
How long have you been in business? |
The company has been in business since February, 2000. We started as
an Internet Consulting Company, went through a major business
restructuring and entered the web hosting industry in early 2002. |
| |
How is my service monitored? |
HostCONCEPT maintains internal and external monitoring systems for
every server in our Network Operations Center. The servers are
checked every 5 minutes via network monitoring software. HostCONCEPT
monitors uptime as well as individual features and services running
on each server. HostCONCEPT staff is notified via alarms, email,
screen pop-ups, and paging, if a problem occurs. |
| |
What is the uptime? |
HostCONCEPT strives to maintain a 99.9 % server uptime and 99.5%
network 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 "Acts of God"
includes; fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, Telco fiber issues (i.e.
Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere), backbone peering point
issues (i.e. Sprint™ 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 HostCONCEPT fails to
meet it's 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. HostCONCEPT does not
credit a full month's service if we only have 99.4% uptime. This
would not be financially healthy for HostCONCEPT, and in turn would
only negatively affect the service level HostCONCEPT provides to
you. "Partial refunds for partial downtime" is our standard policy. |
| |
Are there any hidden costs? |
No. All costs are stated plainly on our website. We do not hide fees
in fine print, 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 as well.
HostCONCEPT very often will allow you to upgrade your packages to
the next size up for a small upgrade fee, 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
availability, as well as estimated bandwidth usage, are available to
you in the control panel included with every hosting package. |
| |
Do you have battery backups and generators? |
Our Network Operations Center is backed up and protected by UPS
(Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems. In a very rare case of
utility outages, our auto-start generators start automatically,
taking over for the UPS system and supplying all necessary power for
our Network Operations Center. APC™, Tripp-Lite™, & Liebert™ UPS
Systems provide the power backups, along with Kohler™ generator
systems. |
| |
What kind of security does the HostCONCEPT Network Operations
Center have? |
Our Network Operations
Center (NOC) in Scranton, PA USA is a high-security facility. Double
metal security doors, with interior gating, protect the main
entrance to the facility. The windows-less facility has advanced
security, fire, temperature, and flood alarms, directly piped into
the Security Monitoring Company via phone, cellular, and internet
connections. A Scranton Police Station is less than two blocks away,
and a Fire Station less than six blocks. A 16-camera digital video
system monitors the interior and exterior of the NOC. This video
system is monitored internally at the facility and externally. The
video data is recorded live both on and off site, and stored for
several months ahead. Visitors cannot gain access into the facility
without employee escort. The physical servers and equipment area is
secured from the visitor's area by huge metal doors, as well as
metal sheeting and bulletproof glass walls. Armed guards are planned
for the future, but not a necessity at this junction. |
| |
Can I have adult content on my website? |
HostCONCEPT does not allow adult content on its network. |
| |
May I view your Terms Of Service? |
|
| |
What if my site breaks your "acceptable usage
policy" rules? |
Clients' sites/service
may be suspended for violations of policy, or if extreme, or second
time offenders, sites may be cancelled. Each occurrence is dealt
with on a case by case basis, and we try to work things out with
every client. Notifications will be sent, if HostCONCEPT takes any
action on your account. |
| |
Do you have a Service Level Agreement (SLA)? |
|
| |
What is your connectivity to the Internet? |
Our NOC is connected
via OC192 fiber connections to Verizon™ (Formerly Bell Atlantic PA)
& Commonwealth Telephone (CTSI), NorthEast PA's 2nd largest Telco,
as well as 2GBPS+ fiber from PPL Telcom™, a sub-division of
Pennsylvania Power & Electric™ (PPL™). The NOC utilizes
Sprint™ (http://www.sprint.com) & AT&T™ (http://www.att.com) OC3
(155mbps) connections, as well as 100MBPS Metro Fast Ethernet drops
from Cogent™ (http://www.cogentco.com), Level3™
(http://www.level3.com), & Global Crossing™ (http://www.glbx.com).
For redundancy, HostCONCEPT is currently running BGP4 (border
gateway routing protocol) to maintain the speed and uptime. If
one backbone line goes down, it will balance the load to the other(s).
If one line gets congested, it will load balance the traffic. |
| |
How is extra bandwidth billed? |
HostCONCEPT 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. |
| |
How am I billed? |
All monthly and yearly
hosting fees are recurring. You can view your monthly statement via
the billing system at any time. Fees resulting from resold accounts
(resellers only), extra services or "add-ons", service charges,
overages or penalty may be added to your monthly statement or
charged separately. All payments to HostCONCEPT are non-refundable. |
| |
How much assistance do you provide for my website? |
HostCONCEPT will
assist you with all support for services provided directly through
us. We 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. We are not responsible for teaching you how to use another
company's products. Example: HostCONCEPT will assist you with the
upload 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 technical support
for how to use their product.
We cannot even attempt to support all the thousands of software
products on the market. We will attempt but not obligated to provide
some technical support for the most popular programs our clients
use. We are not responsible for assisting with your own programs and
CGI/Perl/PHP scripts. If you choose to install your own programs or
scripts on your site, you are responsible fully for installing them.
We do not provide support for any program and CGI/Perl/PHP script
that is pre-installed with your web hosting package.
We are not responsible for designing or developing your website,
including HTML and/or images. We will 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 not the responsibility of HostCONCEPT. Any technical support
offered outside of HostCONCEPT's support scope shall incur a service
charge of $65 per hour and client's prior approval are required. |
| |
How fast are service orders set up? |
All orders are setup
in within 24 hours and under a first-come-first-serve basis. If an
order is placed during normal business day hours, orders may be
processed in only a few minutes. If an order is placed in the middle
of a night, when the least amount of staff is on-site, orders may
take slightly longer to process. If you order a HostCONCEPT Private
Label account, you will have the ability to instantly setup accounts
by yourself, after the initial setup by HostCONCEPT. |
| |
Does my service get a control panel? |
Every HostCONCEPT web
hosting package comes with a web browser based control panel. The
control panel includes many features including; email
configurations, chat rooms, mailing lists, pre-installed CGI/Perl/PHP
scripts, databases and etc. |
| |
What type of support do you offer and average response time? |
HostCONCEPT offers
clientele support 24/7/365 via a web based ticket system for normal
and emergency issues, which integrates all incoming support email
into it. The ticket system tracks support inquires by "time waiting"
and "priority" for response from the support department. The
HostCONCEPT administration carefully monitors that the HostCONCEPT
support staff maintains a fast response time, with courteous and
helpful service. Phone support is currently not offered on the
HostCONCEPT product line, in order to keep the costs down. We strive
for response times of no more than a few hours. Response times of
just a few minutes are quite common during normal business hours. |
| |
Is there a discount if I pre-pay for several months in advance? |
There are yearly
payment discounts, of which details can be found on the order form. |
| |
What about software upgrades? |
HostCONCEPT handles
all software upgrades/patches on all servers. We fully follow all
trends in the industry, and monitor all support/bug announcement
groups. If a new bug or security vulnerability is found, HostCONCEPT
immediately upgrades our systems. HostCONCEPT auto-updates the Linux
systems every night from security patch websites. As new software is
released, including new versions of operating systems, HostCONCEPT
evaluates the new software. If the software's new version does not
have any security issues, or bug problems, the upgrade is
implemented. |
| |
Does my service have its own IP address/number or is it shared? |
This depends on the
type of package that you order. Traditionally all HostCONCEPT
hosting packages use shared IP addresses. The exception to this are
the VDS Enterprise and all Private Label plans, which come with a
dedicated IP address. Charges may apply to purchase additional IP
addresses for usage beyond your initial service allocation. |
| |
What if the hardware fails? |
HostCONCEPT stocks
replacement parts for all servers. HostCONCEPT is always building
new servers for our hosting clients, so a full inventory of parts is
maintained. Hardware failures are uncommon, but they do happen, and
are a part of the hosting business. HostCONCEPT repairs all failed
hardware promptly, to minimize any downtime caused by such, at no
cost to the clientele. |
| |
What are the setup fees and monthly costs involved? |
There are many
different services offered in the HostCONCEPT product line, and
several packages available within each service. Please check the
pages of this website for pricing details on each specific service
and package. |
| |
What are the hardware specs of the servers? |
Every server at
HostCONCEPT has different specifications. Whenever a server reaches
what we feel to be the limit, another server is built. HostCONCEPT
is constantly upgrading the server hardware on our network. If more
drive space, memory, or faster processors are needed, they are added
in at that time. The average shared server is a dual processor
system, with 512-2048MB RAM, and 160mbps SCSI hard drive(s), with
IDE backup. |
| |
Do you support International domain names and clients? |
HostCONCEPT can host
all international domains on its servers. HostCONCEPT can accept
foreign clientele, just please be advised that all correspondence
must be conducted in English. The client is responsible for handling
the registration process of foreign domain name(s). This must be
pointed to name servers on the HostCONCEPT network as assigned, or
you can use other name servers and route the domain name to the IP
address you are assigned. HostCONCEPT cannot handle the foreign
domain registration process for you, due to the fact that we do not
speak all of the potential foreign languages that may be involved.
HostCONCEPT will assist you however, with any technical information
need to accomplish this. |
| |
What happens if I decide to leave HostCONCEPT? |
You are free to leave
at any time. Simply send a support ticket to HostCONCEPT and your
services will not be renewed on its next renewal date. |
| |
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. HostCONCEPT does not host
such websites. If such material is found on a HostCONCEPT 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 or
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 through valid user accounts. We
recommend you use complicated passwords for your account.
HostCONCEPT strictly reviews all orders for new clients, to make
sure they are legitimate. Unfortunately, some fake orders do get
through the system, and that is one way a hacker can gain initial
access. HostCONCEPT 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 HostCONCEPT
Network Operations Center, measures are in place to cut off such
floods and attacks automatically at the backbone level and the
router level. HostCONCEPT also uses firewall technology to fend off
most common methods of flooding and attacks to the network. |
| |
What if I want to upgrade my service? |
You may upgrade or
downgrade your HostCONCEPT service plan at any time. You will be
required to pay (i) a $10 upgrade/downgrade fee, (ii) the difference
in the setup fee for your current plan, and (iii) the plan you are
upgrading to, should you decide to choose a larger plan. You will
then pay the new monthly or yearly fee for the new service plan that
you select. |
| |
How do I get started? |
Simple. Just fill out
the secure order form for the service you wish to order. You will
receive details shortly afterwards about how to proceed with your
new HostCONCEPT service plan. |
| |
