| Q: | What's the Purpose of this document? | |
| A: | The purpose of this document is to familiarize you with certain technologies, terminologies, and price structures, of Internet services associated with an Internet presence.
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| Q: | What is a Domain Name? | |
| A: | You are likely already familiar with domain names, although
you may not be aware of it. Here are some examples of domain names: yahoo.com microsoft.com google.com brightok.net Domains are the "dot com" (or .net or .org) name that is unique to you, your organization, or your business, on the Internet. Domains are available from a global registry on a first-come, first-served basis -- if the domain you want is already taken, you will have to choose a different name. (Sometimes you can purchase a domain from its existing registrant, but this is usually not practical, since the domain name will have a real or imagined value to the current registrant, and this amount will be more than you are willing to pay.) Notice, in the examples above, that the "www" is not part of the domain name. That is a universally recognized abbreviation for "World Wide Web" that most people put on the beginning of their web site's name, but is not part of the domain name itself.
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| Q: | Does Chickasaw offer Domain Registration services or Commercial Web Services? | |
| A: | No. Web site hosting and domain services can be a very complicated and specialized area of service that can be very support-intensive, especially for new users. Our experience is that new users need support -- which we cannot offer, except for an hourly fee, making it not cost-effective for you. We do, however, have a recommendation for you: www.godaddy.com. This site allows you to register your domain name, as well as create a web site with their "Web Site Tonight" service.
We do not have a business relationship with Go Daddy or receive any compensation for our referrals, but our experience with their technology and personalized support prompts us to recommend them highly.
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| Q: | What is Domain Registration? | |
| A: | You obtain the use of a domain through a paperwork process and annual payments to a registrar. If you are familiar with this process, you can make those arrangements on your own; or, we can make the arrangements for you. Regardless of who makes the arrangements, your name is still yours -- we no claim to your domain name even if we register it for you -- you are the registrant and we have no legal right to prevent you from taking it with you should you ever move away or for any other reason want to change your Internet Service Provider. If we register your domain, there is an annual charge of $24. You can pay this annually, monthly ($2/month), or up front for a period of more than one year (10 years, $240, for example). When we register names for you, we automatically renew them each year unless you tell us otherwise 30 or more days prior to the annual expiration date. The charges discussed above are for the registration of your name in the global registry and covers our administrative service and the payment we make to the registrar on your behalf. We can also help you find available domain names at no charge.
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| Q: | What is Domain Hosting (or DNS Hosting) (or Domain Parking)? | |
| A: | Hosting or Parking a Domain Name in the Domain Name System (DNS) is something all domain registrants have to do for each of their
domains, or have someone do for them. If you have your own DNS servers, you can do your own DNS hosting. Except for large companies,
most of our customers do not have their own DNS servers, so they use our Domain Hosting service.
DNS Domain Hosting includes the use of our servers, the expertise of our DNS administrators, DNS troubleshooting assistance, and we will make DNS changes at no charge. DNS Domain Hosting includes a free e-mail redirection service, where our servers can optionally accept mail addressed to your domain, and either place it in a mailbox on our system or re-deliver it to another mailbox elsewhere on the Internet. E-mail redirection can involve as many addresses as you need, being forwarded to as many places as you need. DNS Domain Hosting is $10 per month per domain. There is no setup charge. When you have a large number of domains (more than 5) that are really just different names for the same thing (let's say for example that a new and used car dealership had a number of different domain names -- like cars.com, trucks.com, vans.com, vehicles.com, usedcars.com, newcars.com, detailshop.com, oilchange.com... etc.) and all of these domains are really just names for the exact same company and the exact same web site, you can host all of them with us for a monthly "Bulk DNS Hosting" charge of $50.00.
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| Q: | What are BrightNet's DNS Servers? | |
| A: | ns.brightok.net [69.8.2.15] and ns2.brightok.net [69.8.2.12]. Use these server names and IP addresses if you use an outside registrar and you need to specify our DNS (name) servers.
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| Q: | What is Personal Web Hosting? | |
| A: | Personal web hosting means the provision, on our servers, of a web site for an individual's or family's personal use. It does not include any
other meaning, such as non-profit, religious, etc. -- personal means personal.
Personal web space is provided to all of our Internet access customers as a convenience, as part of their service. The web address for your personal web space is http://www.brightok.net/~username, where "username" is your username. Individuals may combine their Personal Web Hosting service with DNS domain hosting service in order to have their web site appear under a domain name, such as http://www.thejonesfamily.com/. Businesses and organizations are not eligible for this discounted service.
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| Q: | What is Commercial Web Hosting? | |
| A: | Commercial Web Hosting applies to businesses as well as organizations -- any "non-personal" web site on the BrightNet system pays for
commercial web hosting. This takes into account the potential increase in bandwidth demand, and the costs associated with expert server administration and the 24 x 7
uptime we strive for on commercial accounts. For a limited time, customers signing up for our standard web hosting package will
receive 50 MB of hard drive space on the web server for no additional cost. (When the promotion ends, we may withdraw or change the
offer, but those who sign up during the promotion will continue to receive the space at no additional charge.) Commercial web hosting is
$25/mo. There is a one-time setup charge of $50. If you need more space, additional megabytes are $5 per 10 MB per month. This is not an offer of "unlimited" bandwidth web hosting -- free bandwidth is not unlimited, and unlimited bandwidth is not free. Still, we do not currently impose download quotas or bandwidth limitations, though we reserve the right to negotiate these with you in the future in response to unexpected traffic burdens. We are not contractually bound to provide infinite bandwidth -- and you are not contractually bound to continue giving us the $25. It's a pretty reasonable arrangement. Remember that if you want to use your domain name in association with your web hosting space, you will need to arrange for DNS hosting with us or another provider.
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| Q: | Does Chickasaw offer e-mail hosting or spam and virus filtering if I use my own domain name for E-Mail? | |
| A: | Yes. We offer use of our Modus Mail server, which scans for viruses, spam, and dangerous attachments. The cost of this service is $2/month per mailbox. Our e-mail hosting service is compatible with domains registered with Go Daddy or any other domain registrar. Special records will need to be inserted in your DNS setup in order to deliver mail to our server.
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