Frequently Asked Questions

You can contact our technical support team on 1300 665 491, or email techsupport@tppinternet.com. For further contact details please visit our General Contact Details page.

We offer support on New South Wales business days, Monday to Friday 8:30am-6pm EST.

A domain name is a license to use a specific name on the Internet for a specific period of time (generally 1-2 years). An example of a domain name is tppinternet.com.au.
The most common uses for domain names are as website addresses (www.tppinternet.com.au) and/or email addresses (techsupport@tppinternet.com.au).

Once your domain name has been successfully registered, you will need hosting in order to use the domain name for email addresses and to display a website.

TPP Internet offers a number of different hosting packages that will allow you to set up professional email addresses using your new domain name
(e.g. bob@yournewdomainname.com.au) and display a website.
For more information on TPP's hosting products, please click here, or call 1300 665 491 to speak with our Sales consultants.

Some people believe that registering a business name, ABN or ACN will enable them to have exclusive registration rights of the same name as a domain name; however the various domain name spaces operate independently from the various business registers.
There is no guarantee that your business name will be available to register as a domain name, so it is imperative that you register your name as a domain name as soon as you register your business name. Consider the registration of your business name as a domain name as an important minimal cost investment in your intellectual property and brand protection strategy.
Call 1300 665 491 to speak to our Sales Consultants about how registering domain names can assist your business in brand protection.

Please visit our support knowledgebase for detailed instructions on how to transfer your domain name to another registrant.

Please visit our support knowledgebase for detailed instructions on how to transfer your domain to TPP.

Hosting is the space on the internet where your web site is stored. If you think of the internet as a car park, your web hosting is the space on the internet where you park your web site and it's displayed in that space for other people (i.e. your existing and potential customers) to see it. If you don't have web hosting for your web site yet, TPP Internet offer some fantastic products at very competitive prices. Please contact our sales team on 1300 665 491 for more information.

TPP Internet is an Australian company, so naturally, our servers are in Australia.

Your usage of bandwidth will be measured according to your inbound and outbound data transfer.

Our system will send you email notification when you approach your product's maximum bandwidth usage. At this point, we recommend that you upgrade your product to allow you more bandwidth (if applicable); otherwise, excess data transfer will be charged at the rate specified in the hosting terms and conditions.

When you first set up your hosting account with TPP Internet, our provisioning team would have issued you with your File Transfer Protocol (FTP) details. You can use these details in conjunction with an FTP program to upload your web site content on to our servers so it can be displayed on the internet. Ipswich Inc. offer reasonably priced file transfer software, however you are welcome to use any provider you see fit

Our technical team will provision your product on our servers within 1 business day. We will then email confirmation of your account including FTP details which you will need to upload your web site. Please remember to allow 24-48 hours for propagation, after this time, your web site will be viewable by servers everywhere.

Step by step instructions on configuring email for a number of different email clients are available in our support knowledge base.

- Anti Spam/Anti Virus
- Web Stats
- MySQL Database *
- SSL Capability *
- Supported scripting languages: PHP, mod_perl, mod_python
- CGI Bins

* Features available only through Business Web Hosting Plus.

Yes- Customers may use the 'editing menu' inside the client login section of the Online Management system to manage web and email hosting services.

TPP Internet reserves the right to perform scheduled maintenance at any time, however, we will endeavour to do this at a time that is least disruptive to the majority involved, as server maintenance may, or may not cause disruptions to services.

TPP Internet routinely back up data stored on our servers to ensure that in the unlikely event of failure every precaution to protect our client's data has been met.

Yes - For wholesale pricing and information on footprint products, please visit resellers.tppinternet.com, contact our account managers on 1300 665 491 or email partners@tppinternet.com.

TPP's range of Web Site Builder products are unique tools designed to assist users in developing professional websites, without the cost or complexity of traditional website design.

No! Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can use these simple tools to build their own website. If you can use word processing software, you can use this!

Yes. Visit our demo site and click 'test drive', you can try all the functionality of the system before you decide to purchase.

Yes you can. You can even use the free hosting space some ISP's give to their clients. If you do not currently have hosting, TPP can provide this for you. Visit our hosting page for further information.

There are four different products available in the Web Site Builder range: Business Card, Personal, Small Business and E-Commerce websites. Together, the 4 products cater for every market from the personal user to large corporations.

* No programming/ technical knowledge required
* Simple to use - if you can use a word processor you can design your own website!
* Accessible to anyone with a computer and Internet connection
* Browser based - no downloads or software to install
* Over 10,000 website templates to choose from

Yes. If you find that you need additional pages or functionality, you can upgrade your existing product (we will pro-rata your remaining time on a monthly basis and discount this off your upgrade).

After you have completed your initial website design, you can make unlimited changes to your website content - we do not charge you for making changes, within the licence period.

No. The website building products come with all the tools you will need to create a professional, unique website.

A Buddy Code number is automatically issued to you when you register a domain name with TPP. It entitles you to a 10% discount on future domain name registrations and TPP Internet hosting services.

Your friends and family can use your buddy code number freely. It's our way of saying 'thanks' to our valued customers.

Yes!. Here's how it works:

* Send your Buddy Code to as many friends or work colleagues as you can.
* Each time a new domain name order is placed with TPP Internet using your Buddy Code, the user receives a 10% discount.
* When 10 Buddy Code orders have been placed with TPP Internet, we send you $50.00 cash!

You can keep track of your Buddy Code activity by logging into your client account in our Online Management System. Here you may view how many orders have been placed using your buddy code and you can send your code to more people using our simple tools.

An SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate ensures that any information sent to your web server from your web site will be scrambled as it travels across the internet, making it impossible for any third party to intercept or steal.

It also delivers peace of mind for your customers as an SSL Certificate allows them to check the following information before entering their sensitive data to your web site:

* The Domain Name (or URL) that the certificate was issued for
* The owner of the certificate (your organisation name)
* The physical location of the owner
* The validity dates of the certificate.

Installation instructions vary depending on the server type that your site is running on. Instructions on how to install SSL Certificates on most of the common server types can be found at: http://www.geotrust.com/quickssl/install/index.htm. Simply click on the server type that you are running and follow the instructions.

Note: Even though these instructions are listed for the QuickSSL product, the same procedures will be followed for TrueBusinessID, and QuickSSL Premium

A CSR Request is short for 'certificate signing request'.

If you have an ISP, they will generate a CSR file for you upon request, otherwise, Certificate Signing Request instructions are available for the web servers listed below.

Please click on your server type to view the instructions.

Microsoft Internet Server 4.0
Plesk
Microsoft Internet Information Server 6
Apache + Raven
Apache + SSLeay
Apache 2.x
C2Net STRONGHOLD
Ensim
Netscape Enterprise 3.51
O'Reilly WebSite Professional 3.x
Apache
WebSTAR 4.0
ZEUS Web Server v3
Web Logic 5.1
Deerfield (O'Reilly) Website Pro 3.x
O'Reilly WebSite Professional 2.X
Microsoft Internet Information Server 5
Lotus Domino Go 4.6.2.6 and higher
iPlanet Enterprise Server 4.1
Lotus Domino 4.x
Lotus Domino 5.x

GeoTrust SSL Certificates run on most systems and server configurations (IIS 4.0+, Apache, BEA Weblogic, Tomcat etc). For an exhaustive list, please see the official GeoTrust Server Compatibility listing.

The below links will provide more information on these particular certificates

* Quick SSL
* Quick SSL Premium
* True Business ID

Quick SSL
- Verification of Entity - Domain Name
- Documentation Required for Authentication- Domain authorised email
- Delivery Time - 10 minutes *
- Inclusions - Certificate only
- Name in Seal -N/A

Quick SSL Premium
- Verification of Entity - Domain Name
- Documentation Required for Authentication- Domain authorised email
- Delivery Time - 10 minutes *
- Inclusions - Certificate and site seal
- Name in Seal -Domain Name

True Business ID
- Verification of Entity - Domain Name and Organisation
- Documentation Required for Authentication- Proof of organisation/DUNNS & whois info
- Delivery Time - 2 days average *
- Inclusions - Certificate and site seal
- Name in Seal -Organisation and Domain Name

True Business ID Wildcard
- Verification of Entity - Domain Name and Organisation
- Documentation Required for Authentication- Proof of organisation/DUNNS & whois info
- Delivery Time - 2 days average *
- Inclusions - Certificate and site seal
- Name in Seal -Organisation and Domain Name

Quick SSL and Quick SSL Premium certificates can be verified and delivered in approximately 10 minutes of GeoTrust receiving the application, providing all organisation and CSR details are correct and approved.

True Business ID and True Business ID Wildcard certificates can be verified and delivered in approximately 2 days of GeoTrust receiving the application, providing all organisation and CSR details are correct and approved.

ADSL stands for 'Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line'. It provides high speed, always-on access to the Internet from your home or business telephone line.

By sending digital signals over the telephone line, it provides broadband Internet access without interrupting your normal (and concurrent) use of the telephone line for placing and receiving phone calls.

It provides an effective way to provide Internet access in a variety of situations, without the complications of configuring and operating a modem. It has a number of technical advantages compared to accessing the Internet via a dialup modem or other means.

The 'Asymmetric' part of these services is related to their data transfer speed, which is slower on the 'upload' (to the Internet) direction than it is on the download (from the Internet) direction.

This is similar to a 56k modem, which is only 'fast' in the download direction, and slower uploading.

Most other commonly available data services (such as Telstra leased lines, ISDN and Wireless) are Symmetric - meaning that the upload and download speeds are the same.

TPP Internet has a symmetric option for DSL as well (512-S), which offers a 512 kilobit per second transfer rate in both the upload and download directions.

You have a choice of access speeds with ADSL:

512k/128k

Which means that your peak download speed is 512 kilobits per second, and your peak upload speed (back to the Internet) is 128 kilobits per second.

This is our recommended entry level speed for Broadband ADSL. Voice over IP can be used on this speed, however customers should take care not to generate too much traffic whilst using Voice over IP, or conversation quality may be impeded.

1500k/256k

Which means that your peak download speed is 1500 kilobits per second (or 1.5 Megabits per second), and your peak upload speed is 256 kilobits per second.

This is the speed that we recommend for general Internet use. 1500/256 provides enough bandwidth for general day-to-day Internet usage and Voice over IP.

512k/512k

Which means that your peak download speed is 512 kilobits per second and your peak upload speed is 512 kilobits per second. Note that due to the way TCP/IP works, you will not be able to attain the peak speed in both directions simultaneously.

This speed is only recommended for customers in need of higher upload speeds.

Up to 8192/384

Which means that your peak download speed may be up to 8192 kilobits per second (depending on the length and quality of your telephone line), and your peak upload speed is 384 kilobits per second.

This speed is recommended for small businesses with a lot of Internet traffic and Medium - large size organisations. This speed will support high quality Voice over IP, as well as high quality video streaming and other interactive Internet content.

ADSL offers a number of advantages over 'dialup' Internet access:

* It is very quick to connect - the connection establishes very fast, without needing to wait for ages to 'dial up'. It is 'just there' - when you need it, instantly.

* It is dramatically faster than a dial modem or ISDN connection - up to 50 times faster, in fact! This makes an enormous difference to the effectiveness of your Internet experience

* ADSL seamlessly 'shares' a phone line along with normal 'voice' services. Your phone is not engaged when you are using the Internet - in fact you can freely use the phone at the same time as you access the Internet! No more busy signals for people trying to contact you while you surf.

* No second phone line needed. You can easily offset the costs of ADSL by $30 per month or more - this is the amount you might have otherwise spent on a second phone line and on local calls to access the Internet with a modem, without interrupting the use of your primary telephone service.

* You can save time and frustration by never having to wait for a modem to connect, or suffering connection dropouts, in addition to the hugely increased download speeds available

* It is far more cost effective than any previous alternatives for providing broadband connections to most home or office locations. Most other technologies providing access at more than 256 kilobits per second to residential and small business environments are more expensive than ADSL

There are a number of technical limitations and issues to be aware of when contemplating an ADSL connection to the Internet:

ADSL is not available on all phone services

Some design aspects of the Telstra copper line network mean that some locations cannot support an ADSL service - even if your exchange is nominally 'ADSL enabled'. These Telstra network limitations are beyond our control.

Agile data services or ISDN are great alternatives in many situations where ADSL can not be delivered.

ADSL is not a guaranteed bandwidth service

Unlike conventional leased line services, the achieved performance of the ADSL network is not guaranteed.

Telstra's copper line network architecture, and the manner in which ADSL data is moved around the city, mean that network congestion is possible in your line at some times. The speeds quoted for ADSL services are theoretical maximum rates.

Performance of the network may vary by time of day or may decrease over time due to increased network interference in the Telstra copper line network.

ADSL is only fast in one direction

The asymmetric transfer rates provided by ADSL are designed to optimise the speed of Internet downloads.

As a consequence, the upload speed on ADSL is far slower.

This means that ADSL is often unsuitable for situations where you intend to upload (or serve) large quantities of data from your location back out into the Internet.

However, we now have our SDSL service offering available for situations where you wish to have symmetric throughput, at a slightly higher cost.

ADSL is less reliable than dedicated broadband links

Because ADSL runs over the copper voice telephone network, ADSL achieves a lower reliability level than a business oriented leased line connection.

* If an ADSL connection fails, it may take some time to restore.
* Telstra reserve the option to 'modernise' their network at any time, which may result in an ADSL service becoming permanently unavailable on your line.
* Telstra will not guarantee the long term provision of ADSL and may withdraw the service permanently from being available over the copper line network in some or all locations.

* Make sure your phone number is connected to an ADSL-enabled exchange (use our Availability Check we have here). You can proceed providing that tool says that ADSL is available at your telephone exchange.

* Signup Online

* If you run into operational questions filling that in, or you want to talk to our staff about your options for hardware etc etc, please just call us during office hours on 1300 665 491 and speak to one of our sales staff about it, or drop a line to sales@tppinternet.com.

* Note that if your order can not be provisioned by us for any reason, no charges will apply. You only pay us if the service works.

ADSL is available in an increasing number of areas. Please consult our coverage information pages for information about our current ADSL coverage regions.

Chances are that your area is either enabled for ADSL already, or will be enabled very soon!

You can check for yourself, right now, using our Availability Check.

You should also be aware that ADSL is not available on all telephone lines. There are a number of technical limitations (including the physical length of the copper line from your house to the phone exchange) that can stop you being able to access ADSL.

There are a number of these. ADSL is a technology designed to re-use the old copper phone lines in a new way. In some cases, that new way just isn't possible to achieve. As a result, some customers who ask us to set up ADSL on their line will be disappointed to have their request rejected.

* Transmission Loss Too High : This usually means the distance to the exchange is too far or the quality of the copper is poor.

* Incompatible Infrastructure - RIM : This usually means that there is fibre optic equipment between you and the exchange.

* Incompatible Infrastructure - Pair-Gain : This means your phone line is currently supporting 2 telephone numbers, for example your next door neighbour and you share a line.

* Incompatible Service on the line : This usually means there is electronic equipment between you and the exchange that does not support ADSL.

* Incompatible Service type (ANT1) : Equipment on the line, usually near the location of the phone, that interferes with the DSL service.

* Other miscellaneous reasons (e.g. address does not match phone service)

Note that you pay nothing in cases where we are unable to deliver ADSL to your chosen phone line.

Pretty much any ADSL device should work with our service. If its on sale in Australia, chances are that it is fine.

We sell and support the DSL modems and routers listed in the respective Hardware sections of our website. However any that are listed on this page should work with our service as well: http://www.telstra.com.au/adsl/equipmnt.htm.

Providing the ADSL device you are considering has an Australian certification, you can be reasonably confident that it should work.

Of course, for a 100% confidence level, we suggest you buy your ADSL device from us - and if it doesn't work for you, we'll simply change it over for one that does.

If you have problems connecting your modem/ router to your network, please contact your local IT specialist or the manufacturer directly. If you purchased the hardware from TPP Internet, please contact NetComm or visit http://www.netcomm.com.au/ for more information.

A new device called a DSLAM has to be installed in your local telephone exchange before ADSL can be ordered for your phone line.

So if your exchange isn't DSL enabled yet, it is worth checking back later, because it just might be enabled soon. This applies for rural townships, as well as for capital cities!

Each DSLAM supports a number of connections to customers. These devices are very expensive.

On the 'upstream' side, this device is attached to a very high speed data network link, which connects from that exchange back to an in-state aggregation point for the provider concerned (typically somewhere in your states' capital city).

The DSLAM is capable of transmitting DSL. And it sits there, waiting for you to order a DSL service into your local exchange.

When you order ADSL from TPP Internet, orders are placed into Telstra to connect your line to us.

A technician at the exchange will then 'jumper' your copper telephone line to a 'port' on the ADSL DSLAM and then back to the telephone exchange switch (the thing that does normal phone calls). Your phone line will also run through an ADSL filter, in some cases this can be a separate device, and in others, for example Agile DSLAMs, the filter is built in to the DSLAM.

The splitter/filter is essentially identical to the one that you need to fit at your own home at your end of the line.

The splitter makes sure that only 'sound' goes to the devices that expect 'sound' on the wire, and only 'high speed computer data' goes to devices that expect 'high speed computer data'.

The DSLAM line concerned also needs to be configured so that when data is moved to and from your line, it gets routed to the correct part of the aggregation server back in your capital city.

The configuration done at this point makes sure that when bytes go in from your place, they get routed to your chosen ISP's broadband link to the same aggregation point.

Back at your house, you attach a filter/splitter to your phone line to (again) make sure that the 'sound' (only) makes it to your 'sound' using devices (phone, fax, answering machine, modem etc).

Importantly, the splitter also ensures the reverse is true - that the ADSL device is not adversely affected by the use of your telephone at the same time.

The ADSL box connects directly to the copper exchange line (without a filter) so it can experience the happy non-sound high frequency mess which is ADSL, and turn it back into Internet packets for you.

Meanwhile, all the way back at the other end, your ISP connects your account up to the Internet via its authentication servers and its routers and switches and servers, and moves all your data to the greater Internet and back again. And the world is a happy place.

If you are using an ADSL device that we did not supply, it will need to be configured to work with our service.

The only configuration that typically needs to be done is to set two configuration 'magic numbers', which are called the VPI and VCI numbers. Somewhere in your ADSL device (or in some cases, in the driver software that comes with it), there should be a couple of boxes for you to fill in or change these values.

The correct values for use with our service are 8 and 35 respectively (sometimes in separate fields, sometimes in a single field, specified as 8/35 )

Once your ADSL device is set for 8/35, you can plug it in to your phone line and you should see 'line sync' after several seconds (maybe up to 30 or so).

'Line sync' means that your ADSL device 'sees' the ADSL DSLAM at the telephone exchange and is ready to use it. On most ADSL devices this means that an appropriately labeled light goes solid.

If you have phone or other non-ADSL devices on your line - any such devices at all - they need to have line filters installed to protect them from the ADSL line noise (and to protect ADSL from interference from the phone and/or other devices, too - which can stop ADSL working).

Once you have line synch, you can get your computer or in most cases, your ADSL Router to log in to our ADSL service over your line.

Your TPP Internet assigned login name will be : someusername@xxx.xxx.xx
(you should replace someusername with the user id we assigned for you).

TPP Internet will also assign a password to you for your ADSL access.

You need to plug that username and password into your ADSL Routers web-based configuration page. You can obtain other TPP Internet configuration settings from our support web pages.

The phone wires used by ADSL are exactly the same (two) wires used by your normal telephone handset.

You do need to install a line filter. This filter (they also come in 'central filter' and 'central splitter' versions and we highly recommend you get one of these installed) separates the audio signals used by your phone (or fax, or modem, or answering machine) from the high frequency digital signals that ADSL uses.

You need to ensure that every device in your home or office which shares the line with the ADSL device has a line filter fitted to it.

It's easy, and its very cost effective, to move to TPP Internet from BigPond (or from any other provider participating in the 'fast transfer/churn' process.

Please consult the ADSL Churn section within the Terms and Conditions for further information.

It means you need to get your Alarm company to come out and organise the installation of a central splitter, so that it keeps working properly with ADSL, and so that ADSL keeps working properly with the alarm system.

Specific details vary between alarm companies. But the point in general is that an alarm system is essentially like another phone or fax or answering machine, and it needs a line filter installed in front of it. The thing about alarm devices is they are (deliberately) wired into your office in a way that hides them from view and from easy access. So you just need to get your alarm company to help you to make it all work right by doing the appropriate wiring of a line filter into the alarm box.

Please be 100% clear that we take no responsibility for the correct operation of your alarm system in the presence of ADSL services. This is entirely a matter between you and your alarm system vendor.

A typical time frame is 9 days from receipt of your order to the provision of a working ADSL service (providing your service can be provisioned by our carrier - sometimes it can't, and in this case, you don't pay anything for our making the attempt).

There are many ADSL routers available in the market today.

If you are unsure of what to purchase or find this all a bit too technical, we highly recommend that you purchase your ADSL hardware from us, that way, you won't need to configure anything or worry about support. Our modems are shipped pre-configured, all you need to do is plug it in; and our Technical Support staff are very familiar with the hardware we sell, so will be able to provide you with the best support, if you need it.

You can, however select your own ADSL hardware and purchase it from elsewhere.

If you do this, we recommend you purchase one with the following features:

* Australian telecommunications approval. (A-Tick)
* Support for ADSL and ADSL2+
* Ethernet based router with built-in PPPoA/PPPoE client.

Exchanges are enabled for ADSL on a continuing basis. So it is worth while checking back with us (via the availability check on our website) to see if your phone number has magically 'become enabled', from time to time. You just might get a positive surprise.

You can use either one. The service works with them both.

We charge a set-up fee and a monthly fee based on your choice of peak download speed, and your included monthly download allowance. If you exceed your quota you will be slowed down to non-broadband speeds for the remainder of your monthly cycle.

You can buy your ADSL equipment for your service at the same time as you order your service, or use an existing, approved, device if you already have one.

Please note that TPP Internet strongly recommends that you buy and use an Ethernet based ADSL device rather than a USB or PCI based unit. This is because there are widespread problems with software drivers in some combinations of USB or PCI card ADSL devices and some operating systems.

Practically all modern computers either have an Ethernet port, or can easily have one added.

Yes, you do need to have, and maintain, a working voice telephone service on your ADSL line at this time. This is not a technical limitation, it is a business rule that Telstra impose on the situation by their own choice. If you cancel the voice service on an ADSL line, the associated ADSL service will also be cancelled.