Account Features

Q: How soon is my dial-up account activated after I order online?

A: It takes less than 5 minutes to activate your account once your order is fully processed. Our billing system sends the request to our radius servers directly.

Q: How do I set up my account?

A: You can call us at our support number for a walk-through. Setting up your account does not require any special software. Most users are online within ten minutes of calling support. If you signed up online after hours, you can visit our support pages for the same exact walk-through our technicians give you. You can also download our dialer script to your machine and activate it this way using just your username and password.

Q: How many e-mail Accounts are included?

A: This depends on your account type. The family package includes 5 total e-mail boxes. If you need to add additional boxes the charge is $1.00/month per mailbox.

Q: Is web-based e-mail available?

A: Yes, we have a number of interfaces you can use. In fact many customers just use their web-based email because it features an address book and the ability to add signatures. Look for the web mail link on our website.

Q: Is E-mail pop3 and smtp based?

A: Yes, our e-mail servers are compliant with nearly any e-mail client. Clients supported are Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook 2000, Netscape Messenger and Eudora.

Q: What are the limits on message size and mailbox size?

A: Five megabytes per message size, and 6 megabytes per mailbox size. Larger mailbox sizes can be requested for clients using the IMAP protocol. Contact Technical Support or Sales with questions about adding imap to your account.

Q: Do you block outgoing connections on port 25?

A: We have a dynamic relaying system. If a user is able to login via pop3, then the IP address they are connected to is allowed to relay up for up to one hour. Outlook Express generally checks mailboxes every 30 minutes when you are online.

Q: Do you run my e-mail through a virus scanner?

A: Yes, a commercial virus scanner is used for all incoming e-mail. The virus identity files are updated every 24 hours automatically to insure the most up to date viruses are caught. Please note that many ISP's charge extra for this service while we do this for you at no extra cost.

Q: Do you block 'spam' from getting into my mailbox?

A: We use the real-time blacklist features of our mail server software. This allows our systems to block e-mail from known mail servers on the internet who send out massive amounts of spam. However, we cannot block all spam if you intend on giving your e-mail address out to third party websites who send you e-mail. Our mail servers have reduced the amount of spam received by most clients by 80% or better. The best thing to do is never give out your regular e-mail name to anyone besides family and friends or business associates. Sign up for a free hotmail account if you sign up through websites or online memberships. This way your hotmail account will receive the junk mail and your primary mail account will have no junk mail.

Q: How much web space is included with my personal web page?

A: 50 Megabytes. Using over this amount is minimal. We charge an extra $1.00 monthly per extra 50 Megabytes of space needed. 99% of users will never go over this amount. Monthly data transfer is limited to 500 megabytes.

Q: Can my web page be used for commercial purposes?

A: Yes, you can use it for commercial purposes. However, we do not allow pornography, warez ( file sharing ) or any illegal activity to be used for your personal web space.

Q: What kinds of scripts are allowed ?

A: You can use perl, php and C. The use of certain perl options are disabled for security reasons such as Server Side Includes. Standard hosting customers ( www.yourname.com ) will have full access to perl, php, C, mysql, and more with full options enabled.

Q: Are web statistics available?

A: Yes, but for an additional one time setup fee of $5.00. Domain hosting customers get web-statistics setup on the initial count setup.

Q: Are web server logs available?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you run game or internet IRC servers?

A: No, we do no support the use of these. Both of these are large system and bandwidth hogs.

Q: Do you support usenet?

A: We currently have an in-house news server, however we would recommend you use dejanews online for search capabilities. News Accounts can be obtained free online at http://www.deja.com

Q: What kind of filtering software can I use for my computer?

A: Popular filtering software is at netnanny.com. We also support a plethora of other open source and free software that adds to your computers security and thus, your overall internet experience.

Q: How many simultaneous logins am I allowed?

A: You are allowed one login per account. If you have trouble signing on and you allow a different person to access your account, chances are they are online using your account.

Q: What are the max session and idle limits?

A: Max idle time is 45 Minutes. Session Limits are 12 hours.

Q: Do you offer in-home installation?

A: Yes. We can do in-home installation for $50.00. Additional time is billed at $50.00/hour in one hour increments. This service is available in Chico, Oroville, Magalia and Paradise. Other areas are available through third-party companies at higher rates. Please contact us for details.

Network

Q: What kind of connectivity to the internet do you have?

A: We have T1 lines from redundant upstream providers at our facility. Whenever network usage is at 50%, we upgrade our circuits to accommodate more bandwidth.

Q: What kind of routers do you have ?

A: All of our routers are Cisco based. Our core router is a Cisco 3600 series.

Q: What kind of Dialup Access Servers are used?

A: Ascend TNT Max access servers are used. They are V.92 56K.

Q: What kind of backup equipment do you have?

A: We house an additional Cisco Router in case our primary equipment has failure. We also have a John Deere 40,000 Watt Diesel generator with automatic transfer switch. This allows us to always keep power to the facility even in the face of power outages or blackouts. Generator running time is 30 hours.

Support

Q: What Support Hours are available?

A: The hours from 9:30a.m. - 7p.m. Monday Through Friday, and Saturday and Sunday from 12-4p.m. These hours will increase as the customer base continues to grow. E-mail support is available after hours until 10p.m. during the week.

Q: Do you outsource your technical support?

A: No, staffing consists of 2-3 people who are available for support through the week. All staff is in-house, so technical support can also take care of any billing changes you would need to make. A personal relationship with each customer is important to us.

Q: What issues do you support?

A: Our support responsibility is to make sure the services you've contracted for (a connection, email, web space) are functioning correctly. Assisting you to setup your connection the first time is important, as well as helping you to setup your connection if your computer has crashed or has been re-installed.

Helping you recover your system when a program you installed trashes your Windows system, or helping you understand HTML tags is an unrealistic expectation and is outside of our support responsibility. As your ISP, we are not your computer school or free computer repair shop. If you need advise on selecting a company to fix or repair your computer, please contact support. We know a number of company's who specialize in PC repair and highly advise their service.

Q: Do you offer a toll-free number?

A: Yes, you can use the toll-free number to contact technical support or Sales. The number is (866)359-4678. If you are locally in Chico, please call (530)343-6777.

Q: Do you offer screen shots to setup other programs on my computer?

A: Yes, we have a comprehensive directory of screen shots to setup multiple e-mail programs, change in phone numbers and more.

Q: Which Operating Systems do you support?

A: Windows 95/98/2000/NT/XP/ME ; Macintosh OS 8 or higher, and even Linux! We have scripts you can download to setup your connection in less than a minute.  WebTV users and Sega Dreamcast users can also use our services.  Our support knowledge base has information regarding operating system support.

Q: Do you have a system status page?

A: Yes, we have a system status page that has a history of problems in the past, as well as recent issues. This page also has a status of the key systems such as e-mail servers, web servers and radius servers. http://www.chiconet.com/network/status.php

Q: Why do you answer the phone '2INTERACTIVE' ?

A: 2INTERACTIVE, LLC is the parent company.  2INTERACTIVE provides a plethora of different services, from dedicated servers, co-location, hosting and enterprise mail server consulting services.  In addition, 2INTERACTIVE, LLC is a pioneer in providing wireless internet services; and has nearly finished the wireless infrastructure project.  2interactive has been a locally owned and operated company since it began in 1997.

FAQ

Billing

Q: What payment types are accepted?

A: We accept Visa, Mastercard and Paypal. If you are in the 530 area code, we will accept checks and money orders.

Q: Why won't you accept checks / Money orders outside of the 530 area code?

A: It becomes increasingly difficult to collect payments from those individuals who do not pay their bills when they are a great distance away.

Q: How often is my account charged?

A: Your account will be charged when you sign up for service. Your account will be billed every 30 days on the date you signed up. If you signed up on May 15 th , then you would be billed on June 15 th for the following month. Credit Card customers will have this automatically done. A receipt will be e-mailed to the credit card customer upon billing. An invoice will be e-mailed to each customer who pays by a method other than credit card.

Q: Are fees refundable?

A: We have a 15 day money-back guarantee.

Q: What are your Activation Fees?

A: We do not charge Activation fees on any dial-up accounts. Setup and Activation fees are charged for Digital Subscriber line accounts only.

Q: Why do you not charge an Activation Fee for dialup accounts?

A: We don't feel right about charging you for something that takes a matter of minutes to do. Additionally many users are capable and do configure their own computers when signing up without our help or support.

Q: What if I dialed the wrong telephone number and my phone bill is huge?

A: You are responsible to verify the number you are dialing is a local number from your telephone. We bear no responsibility in this matter. You should always call the phone company (dial zero) and ask the operator if the number you want to call is a long distance call from your telephone.

Q: Why did you write such a large FAQ page ?

A: We want our clients to have all of the information they need when ready to order our service. We also want to show our clients and prospective customers that there won't be any hidden charges. All charges for services are clearly stated in this FAQ.