Hello Svaha Customers,
We thank you so much for choosing us as your web host. Your business is appreciated and we are happy to be able to help so many people do more online every day. We started Svaha over 18 years ago and have been honored to be associated with so many unique and interesting businesses and individuals.
We are writing to make you aware of some changes that are on the horizon that are being implemented with you in mind. We want to continue being your web host and offer you better, more secure, robust and reliable services.
Hosting Plan Pricing Change - While we have kept our hosting rates unchanged for close to 10 years(!), sadly our expenses and our hosting requirements have changed. After much consideration we have decided we will be increasing our hosting rates as of January 1, 2014. This fee increase is to accomplish a few goals:
1) To be able to offer a more secure & robust hosting environment.
2) To offer more streamlined and effective customer service.
As data becomes more and more important in the online world, we need to take steps to better protect yours. This price increase will allow Svaha to continue to provide a premium hosting service that we are proud of. Just like your local small businesses offer better service and higher quality selections than the big box stores, we are focused on providing the best possible hosting environment and hope you are willing to pay the small additional cost this requires.
Our new hosting rates are posted at http://svaha.com/services/hosting . If you’ve already paid for a year in advance your old rates apply until your next renewal. You’ll note while we offer monthly payment plans for most of our packages, the best discounts still come with annual payments.
Special Discount - We realize this price increase may be unexpected for some of you we haven’t spoken with recently. If these additional charges are a burden for you please contact us for a discount &/or payment plans.
Customer Service Streamlined With Ticketing System
Several years ago we moved to a new online billing system. One feature of this service you may not have noticed is an online support ticket system. You can still email us directly at service@svaha.com if you need help, but if you want to track the status of your support ticket, we encourage you to use our online support system at https://admin.svaha.com/submitticket.php .
Note - Your billing system username & password is likely different than your hosting account. If you don’t remember it you can request a new password on the site. https://admin.svaha.com/submitticket.php
New Firewall and security policies
It’s a sad fact that servers on the internet are under constant attacks. While we do our best to monitor our server ourselves we also rely on various security tools to help us defend our server. We recently upgraded the firewall software to monitor our logs and incoming connections and An unfortunate byproduct of this is if you forget your password several times in a row or have an older computer that attempts to check your e-mail address with incorrect credentials, our server may block your IP address. If this happens to you it appear to you that your website and e-mail, and even our website, are offline. If you ever notice this symptom please contact us via service@svaha.com, contact us through our ticketing system included on our billing site at http://admin.svaha.com, or leave us a message on our support line at 888-997-8242. One helpful piece of information to have on hand is your current IP address, you can find this by visiting http://whatismyip.com/
Note - You can always check our current server status via twitter account at http://twitter.com/svahacom . In the rare circumstances when we are offline we post updates as soon as possible.
We want to thank you for being a Svaha customer. While this price increase requires something extra from you, we assure you that this steps mean you’ll continue to get the extra support you’ve been getting from Svaha as well. As a small, personal provider of web hosting, we are happy to continue to provide hosting and otherwise help you grow online in the coming years.
Please let us know if you have any questions, about these upcoming changes or anything else. We look forward to serving you in 2014 and beyond.
Have a great day,
Svaha LLC
Matt, Karl, Nicole, Todd, Ozz, Erik, Jim, Laura, Nick, Tim, Fergus, Adam and Greg
Monday, December 2, 2013
