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OPENING AN ACCOUNT & ACCOUNT SERVICES
How do I open an account with BigBiz?
Opening a domain hosting account with us is very simple. Everything can be done online and takes only a few minutes.
If you are a non-profit organization such as a charity group, we can offer you a 50% discount from our regular rates.
Are
there restrictions on what kind of content I can put on my site?
All material appearing on your web site is subject to US laws; copyright material may only be posted with permission from the copyright owners. If you plan to have adult content or content considered to be harmful to minors on your site, you must employ one of the accepted protection mechanisms to block access to minors.
Do
you offer dedicated servers?
Not at this time.
Can
I move my domain from another hosting provider to BigBiz?
Yes. We will take care of the DNS move and other administrative tasks. In addition, we'll give you the first month free of charge!
We are often asked by account holders if they can run background processes such as chat servers, programs that crack DES keys or search through radio telescope logs for signs of extraterrestial life (we're not kidding). As stated in or accepted use policy, BigBiz doesn't allow clients to run background jobs on our servers. We place this restriction on our accounts so we may maintain the highest possible level of performance on our servers.
Account owners are responsible for paying charges incurred on the set of domains assigned to it. Most accounts have only one domain, but some accounts, particularly resellers, may have many domains. Charges incurred include standard monthly fees, one-time setup charges, and extra usage fees for exceeding standard disk and traffic allowances. Invoices are sent to account owners by email. It is important that the email address we have on record for your account be up-to-date. If an invoice is not paid on time, your web sites may be disabled. Please notify billing@bigbiz.com of changes to your email address as soon as possible.
Typical accounts with no extra usage fees can expect to be billed once per quarter (every 3 months). Accounts which regularly exceed standard allowances my be billed more often. Extra heavy users may be required to post advanced deposits to cover estimated usage.
What
methods of payment do you accept?
You may pay by credit-card (Visa, MasterCard, or American Express), automated credit-card charge, cheque, money order, or wire transfer. For credit-card payments, you will find a link on each email invoice that resembles:
http://billing.bigbiz.com/xxxxx/yyyyywhere xxxxx is your account name and yyyyy is a secret password. That page contains valuable information about your account, and all the forms needed to pay your balance with a secure online credit-card transaction. We recommend all account owners to bookmark this page.When you pay by credit-card for the first time, you will be given the option to have your credit-card charged automatically each month. Select this option if you want automated credit-card charges.
If you pay by cheque or money order, please make it payable to "BigBiz Internet Services" and mail it to:
BigBiz Internet Services
2790 Wrondel Way, #445
Reno, NV 89502
USA
The best way is to simply e-mail your new address to billing@bigbiz.com. Make sure you include your current e-mail address and your domain name(s).
TECHNICAL QUESTIONS
What
is your bandwidth capacity and how are you connected to the Internet backbone?
Our servers are interconnected on a 100 Megabit Ethernet to switched network. We use high-reliability 3Com, Cisco, DEC, and HP equipment. The current topology is OC3 to MCI, Sprint, UUNET, Pacbell NAP, Mae-West, Mae-East, and CIX (PAIX), and many others. Everything is fully redundant and connectivity is second to none. Our transit provider is AboveNet (for real-time network status, click here). We always try to make sure there is more than adequate bandwidth for all your needs.
Our servers support a maximum of 300 simultaneous connections. We've seen sustained rates of 40 hits/second, or about 2 million hits a day.
How
are your nameservers connected to the Internet?
Our primary and secondary nameservers are on separate networks.
ns3.bigbiz.com
Connected via multiple OC12, OC3-DS3 fiber-optic lines to uunet, MCI, Sprint, and other Internet back-bone sites.ns.bigbiz.com
Direct connections to Internet backbones total about 500 megabits. Multiple OC3 to main exchange points Mae West, CIX(paix), MaeEast, PacBell NAP, and other private upstream providers.
How
often do you reboot your servers?
On average, about once a month. We may need to reboot if there is a hardware problem. If you are on the notify mailing list we will send you e-mail before scheduled outages. Down time is typically less than 30 minutes per month.
Do
you support ASP pages?
No, we don't support ASP. The BigBiz servers run the UNIX operating system and ASP is run on Windows NT servers.
Why
has my web site stopped working?
Often when a web site appears disabled, it is because InterNIC has put your domain on hold. This is usually due to an unpaid InterNIC bill. You may contact InterNIC at (703) 742-4777. Once InterNIC re-enables your domain, it will begin functioning normally again.
Occassionally, BigBiz will disable a web site when the owner infringes the acceptable use policy. It may include one of the following reasons: non-payment of fees, copyright violations and other illegal activities, sending SPAM, or running background jobs.
If
I send you a program, could one of your people install it for me?
Unfortunately we are too busy with system administration tasks to get involved in user's installations. We can however send your request to a consultant that may be able to help you.