Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Why are your prices so low?
A. Simply put, we feel that you should not have to be gouged if you are a small buyer. Gamers are not usually 200 member organizations that have the resources to gain advantage of most host providers "sliding scale". We know what it's like to have a nice, squad sized, group of friends. You guys need services too. That's where we come in, and you get the advantage of being treated in a fair, just, manner. We are not the lowest priced out there actually, there are many companies that charge less per slot than we do... but you have to buy 200 slot servers to gain that price. We set our prices based on our actual cost, not on how much we think we can get away with (or how much we think you'll pay). Again, we know what it is like to be on the gamers side of the fence and we set our prices to reflect our dedication to this high standard.

Q. I can't login to the uVCP, what am I doing wrong?
A. Make sure you are using the correct login. Your username is the email address you signed up with. Make sure you are using the correct CasE iN yOUr PasSwORd. Your billing login and uVCP login are the same.

Q. What forms of payment do you accept?
A. We prefer any payment accepted by Paypal. You can send payment through Paypal without having to sign up. Our Paypal email address is sales@tacticallysound.com. We also accept money orders sent via the US Post. You can also call us and pay your invoices over the phone with any of the major credit cards.

Q. My Ventrilo server won't let me connect and gives me the error "The professional server failed to authenticate"
A. Visit your uVCP and restart the server.

Q. Where are your servers located?
A. We have several data facilities all homed in various locations all around the country. Our data centers are in California, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia.

Q. What OS and hardware are your servers on?
A. We run P4 3.06 HT procs with 10K SCSI drives and a minimum of 1G ECC RAM. These machines provide extreme reliability and endurance. We currently run Linux Red Hat Fedora Core 2 for my Ventrilo servers.

Q. What codec do you run?
A. You can run any CODEC supported by Ventrilo...yes, even the highest quality one. :) We do not limit your selections in any way. You can change what CODEC your server runs on at any time you want through our web-based control panel (uVCP).

Q. Is my bandwidth limited? Is there a fee associated bandwidth usage?
A. Unlimited bandwidth. Bandwidth costs and considerations are a part of your package. There are no additional fees or costs, hidden or otherwise.

Q. Will I be charged a fee if I decide to upgrade my service (i.e. add more slots)?
A. No. I will upgrade/downgrade at any time for free. The only exception to this is if you upgrade in the middle of the month, your new billing amount won't appear until the next invoice.

Q. How long does setup take?
A. We fill orders by the end of the next business day. That's the official answer. Now, depending on when you place the order, it is filled by the end of the current business day... often times within a few hours. If you place your order at 3am, we won't fill the order until we open. If you place it at 10am, chances are it will be filled in the afternoon before we close the office.

Q. Do you provide me a name or do I need to register one (or just use an IP)?
A. We provide our name of the server. You can always use the IP or create your own CNAME to point to our name. For instance, if we put you at talk.tacticallysound.com(someport). That is the same as 69.44.18.112(someport). Several of our clients setup their own CNAMES like ventrilo.top4life.com that just redirects traffic to talk.tacticallysound.com.

Q. Silly question, but the number of slots is the number of concurrent users?
A. Correct. The "slots" is what your Ventrilo server maxClient setting will be set to. This is the number of simultaneous connected users (it has nothing to do with the user file).

Q. What kind of uptime do you gurantee?
A. We do not have a guarantee for our uptime. Our track record is 97% uptime (to date).

Q. What are resellers?
A. Resellers are entities that sell our servers to their own clients. This gives them the luxury of not having to maintain physical servers or software licenses, and be legally licensed host providers.

Q. How do I edit my Ventrilo server options (like the admin password)?
A. Successfully log into our uVCP (http://www.tacticallysound.com/uVCP.php) for that server. Once you've successfully logged in, you will be presented with the adjustable configurations that are available for your server. Make your changes (enter a new password in the "AdminPassword" field) then click "update server" at the bottom of the page. Your servers configuration will be updated, the changes will be published to your server, and your server will automatically restart and force the changes to take effect.

Q. How do I change my uVCP password?
A. Simply login to either the billing side, or your server side... and click "Change Password".

Q. Where can I download the latest Ventrilo Client?
A. http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php

Q. My server refuses to connect and gives me the error "unable to connect"... what is wrong?
A. Pay your bill on time :) Other things to try are: Try stopping the server and waiting for 15 seconds before you start it back up. This clears up 99% of all server connection errors. If you still cannot connect after trying that, submit a trouble ticket and one of our engineers will get everything fixed up.

Q. Funny, When is my payment due?
A. Immediately upon receipt of the invoice. Payments that are more than 7 days over due can cause your services to be temporarily interrupted until payment is received. We do everything in our power to keep your services online and be there to answer your questions in a quick manner. We expect at the very least for you to return the favor of promptness in payment.

Q. What happens if you turn off my Ventrilo Server? Can I get it back on?
A. Yes, submit payment and the reconnection fee and your services will be restored. Services restored are not guaranteed to be at the same port or server that your old server was at. We suspend servers and hold them for a set period of time before rerenting them, but we cannot hold them forever.

Q. Do you have a test server I can try out before I subscribe?
A. Yes. Feel free to test our services using the following information:
Hostname: voice.tacticallysound.com
Port: 3784
Note: This test server has a max client of 4 and a 5 minute time limit.