Frequently Asked Questions
This is for those quick “on-the-go” questions that need quick “on-the-go” answers.
Q: Can I transfer a Cpanel account from another host to Surpass?
A: Absolutely! Follow these directions to create a Full Backup. Then you must have Surpass Support perform the Restoration for you. Generally this process takes less than 24 hours but also depends on the size of your site. If you are having difficulty creating the Full Backup yourself you will need to provide Surpass Support with your Login Information so that they can do it for you.
Q: Is my order approved and created automatically?
A: Due to the increased rate of Internet fraud, we no longer allow accounts to be created automatically. We will send your activation email within 24 hours, normally much sooner. We want you to get started as soon as possible! When you order, you will receive an email titled Order for domain.com, this way you know that your order has arrived safely.
Q: What are the support options at Surpass?
A: We choose to provide our support through an online helpdesk. We do not provide technical support by telephone because we have expert staff in several locations (local staff in the United States, remote staff in Europe, India and Asia) and customers in over 100 countries. Operating a local telephone center or initiating any type of phone system through remote employees, even through cost-saving VoIP or other means would still greatly increase our cost to operate. That hinders direct savings to you. We find providing all support online is a cost-saving decision like no other. Our help desk system is smartly structured to get your question into the right department, and into the right hands. This also allows us to keep your every request on file. This becomes very useful in the future when you possibly encounter the same type of problem, and there are many other situations when this is useful as well. We have found over the years that keeping all issues archived during the life of your account is priceless for you and for us.
We do ask that you please search our site for information before you email our helpdesk, such as you are doing right now. Thank you! This will make service for everyone better and faster.
All information regarding our support options and addresses can be found on our support page:
http://www.surpasshosting.com/support.php
Q: What different types of hosting do you offer?
A: We offer different plans and also servers to meet any of your needs as you grow. Shared plans are for small to medium sized websites and are the most popular plans that we offer. Reseller plans allow you to create accounts on the fly for your customers or for friends. Dedicated servers are for larger sites that usually rely heavily on SQL databases.
We also offer colocation, meaning that you can ship us your web server and we can house it in our data center. If you do not have your own server, we offer our own dedicated servers. We can install just about any operating system (CentOS, Fedora Core, Debian, FreeBSD) and we also are a Microsoft certified partner. We offer the Windows OS with our dedicated servers but at this time we do not offer Windows shared or reseller hosting.
Q: What are the main features of the hosting plans?
A: We use cPanel and WHM control panels, we are always up to date. If you sign up with us your account will be on a server with the latest software and features that the industry has to offer. To read about cPanel, you can visit their website at: http://www.cpanel.net
We also have a business partnership with cPanel and can offer you low cost cPanel/WHM licensing if you purchase a dedicated server from us.
Core system:
Our servers run on CentOS (www.centos.org). We support PHP4/PHP5/MySQL.
We do not support ASP/ApacheASP/ChilisoftASP on our servers because we believe ASP is best in a Windows/ASP/IIS environment. Our WebDev plans include Mod_Mono which can allow you to use .aspx. This is the only exception for shared hosting accounts. These special plans on seperate webservers are found here:
http://surpasshosting.com/webdev
Another option to run ASP is if you purchase a dedicated server with Windows OS installation.
Q: What are the prices for static/dedicated IP addresses?
A: Dedicated server customers: $2 a month per IP
Reseller account customers: $3 a month per IP
Shared account customers: $4 a month per IP
Additional Services Order Form:
http://surpasshosting.com/addon.php
If you would like 4 or more additional IP addresses, you will need to fill out an IP request form. You do not need to fill out the Additional Services Order Form.
http://surpasshosting.com/forms/iprequest.pdf - For dedicated customers
http://surpasshosting.com/forms/iprequest-shared.pdf - For shared/reseller customers
What can I use to manage my MySQL databases?
The application that you can use is within your cPanel, it is called phpMyAdmin. You can find it by clicking MySQL in the cPanel, the link for phpMyAdmin is at the bottom of that page.
Additionally, for any plan without WHM/cPanel, you can download and manually install phpMyAdmin by visiting their official website. Of course, the support team at the help desk wouldn’t mind doing this for you.
How can you offer such low prices for so many resources on the hosting plans?
After much testing and research we have perfected our market. Besides the fact that we maintain a data center, we build and maintain all of our own equipment as well. Centralizing almost every aspect of our business allows us to pass the savings along to you. The more we grow, the more we can offer; so please recommend us to your friends and colleagues.
Q: What are the benefits of a dedicated server?
A: Having your own server gives you complete control over your website(s) and ultimate peace of mind. You can install any OS (RedHat Linux, Fedora Core, Debian, FreeBSD, Windows) for the applications you wish to run.
You can create accounts for customers or friends with even more options than with a reseller plan.
Since you are running your sites in your own personal environment, you can install many programs that are not allowed on the shared servers due to resource usage restrictions.
Q: What are the general support response times?
A: Technical Support: Responses are normally within fifteen minutes or less. If the issue you submit to our technical support department may involve research or testing, please expect a response time under one hour. Please allow more time if your issue is sent to our third level support department, especially if it involves a certain program that we do not support and must look into further for you.
Billing, Sales, Upgrades/Downgrades: Responses are normally within one hour or two hours. These questions or issues can take longer due to verifying account information, providing payment options, etc.
Abuse: It can take various amounts of time to properly research and resolve reports of abuse or TOS violations.
