FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. A system designed for copying data over networks and the Internet. FTP has a number of features including in-built error correction that make it a very reliable method for copying large files.

Mail attachments are fine for sending small files, however it's not possible to send large files such as high resolution images, sound or movie files as the sizes exceed the limits set by most mail servers. Additionally large attachments slow down mail systems for both the individual user and the organisation.

The FTP protocol allows you to resume broken downloads or uploads, so in the vent you have transmitted 95% of a large file and the connection breaks for any reason, you can simply resume where you left off. The mail protocol has no error correction it's not unusual for large files to arrive corrupted.

Exchanging files via your website is fine for a single user, however there is no security. With a Maytech FTP site you get multiple logins each with a private and secure file area. This preserves the confidentiality of your data.

Any business that needs to reliably exchange large files over the Internet.

Some customers, like printers, for example have many customers or suppliers such as graphic designers who upload large print ready files to their FTP site. Others use their sites as a means of distributing large files to their customers, suppliers or staff. For example a construction company uses our service to make critical, but confidential operational and safety materials available to their subcontractors.

Internet Explorer can upload and download files using FTP and for many users it's all they need. However greater functionality and efficiency is available using a dedicated FTP client such as CuteFTP (for Windows) or Fetch (Mac).

Web browsers are not compatable with FTPS so if you want to use secure transfers you need a dedicated FTP client.

Our service uses the standard FTP protocol and there are no known problems with either Internet Explorer or any mainstream FTP client on PC, Mac, Linux, UNIX, etc.

No! The control panel is browser based and entirely straightforward. Anybody who uses the web can upload and download by FTP - in fact most almost everyone has already done so without realising it.

Yes, all files posted on your FTP site have a web URL such as ftp://yourname.ftpstream.com/filename. You can copy this URL into an email by right clicking on the FTP listing in Internet Explorer

If you have made the necessary setup to use your own domain name for your FTP site address, URLs can be in the form of ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com/filename.

• A secure private FTP site with 100Mb/s bandwidth and unlimited transfers and unlimited concurrent logins.
• An intuitive web based administrator's control panel to add, delete and edit user logins.
• Optional: Encrypted transfers using FTPS.
• Optional: A suite of helper automations to help with the efficient management of your site.

The control panel puts you in charge - you can administer all aspects of your FTP site. The controls available include:

• Add or delete users.
• Deactivate (without deleting), and reactivate a user account.
• Set an expiry - the user login expires on the date set.
• Change a user's password
• Set the user's home directory.
• Arrange users into groups who can share files.
• Set disk usage quotas per user (temporarily unavailable).
• Enable/disable HTTP access to your FTP site on a per user basis.
• Set a user's rights: Full-Access, Read-Only, Write-Only.
• Enable/disable HTTP uploads and downloads.
• Activate, deactivate and configure virus checking (optional extra).
• Control management automations. The automations are an optional extra giving you a suite of tools to manage your FTP site. These include automated cleanup of old files, upload notifications, disk usage notifications.

All sites have a host name in the form of: accountname.ftpstream.com. Additionally you may wish to use your own domain name. In this case you add an A record to your DNS pointing at the fixed IP address allocated to your site.

Web browsers and dedicated FTP client software handle FTP addresses slightly differently, a browser FTP address can include both a user name and a path/file name. Adding a further complication, remember you can use, if you wish, your own domain. So there is more than one answer - The table below illustrates and assumes that your organisation is called XYX Inc and you own the domain xyz.com:

Yes, but you have to arrange this yourself. Check on your control panel for the fixed IP address for your site. Then ask whoever controls the DNS service for your domain to make an "A" record associating this IP with whatever hostname you would like. E.g.: ftp.yourname.com

Our servers are connected via multiple redundant 100Mb/s to tier 1 carriers. Your connection is not throttled or metered, you will always have a fast connection to your site.

All our packages include unlimited bandwidth, there are no bandwidth charges.

We have an excellent reliability record, standing at over 99.9% uptime for the last 12 months.

You can see your current disk storage on the control panel expressed both in megabytes and as a percentage of your quota. Should you reach 95% of your quota, an email is sent to the address we hold for the account holder warning you that you are near your limit.

Users can only see files in their home folder and below. So if you set user John's home folder to /Suppliers/john/, John can not see any files uploaded by user Jane who has home folder /Suppliers/jane/. However the administrator login can see all the files on the system as its home folder is always at the top of the tree. This is generally useful and the way you would want it.

However it is possible to create a login that can see files uploaded by a group of users, or upload files for a group. Taking the above example supposing your employee Frank oversees all suppliers and needs to be able to download files posted by any supplier or upload files to any supplier folder you could create a login for Frank with home folder /Suppliers/, Frank can see, and upload to all folders below including /Suppliers/john/ and /Suppliers/jane/.

There is no limit on concurrent users. All your users may connect at the same time.

No. We only limit disk space and number of users. There are no other limits and that includes: bandwidth, transfers, file numbers, file sizes, concurrent users, etc.

Yes, please see the next question (HTTP Access).

Yes we provide HTTP access for both download and upload. This allows you to embed access to your FTP site into your website.

On the control panel you have the option to separately enable HTTP download and upload on a per user basis. When downloads are enabled the files in the user's folder are available by password protected HTTP. The user name and password is the same as for FTP access.

We provide some HTML code for a web upload form that you can embed on your website. This allows you to create a fully branded upload solution.

We can, it's a custom setup which we can implement having evaluated your requirements.

Yes, when you create a new user you give them full-access rights, read-only or write-only rights.

Yes. We do not allow: pornography; pirated software, music or video; any materials that infringe copyright; or any other illegal activities.

The service is provided as a means for businesses to exchange files within the company and between companies, employees etc. It is not provided as a means of mass distribution of files. For this reason the broadcasting (on a website for example), of logins and password, or URLs with an embedded login / password combination is forbidden.

Absolutely. For full flexibility Mac users should download/purchase FTP software such as Transmit or Fetch both which we can recommend. Additionally Finder and some web Mac web browsers will connect to an FTP site but generally for download only. We have Macs in the office and are only too happy to support Mac users.

Yes. For more detail see our Data Security and Privacy Statement

Yes. Only the account administrator has access to the control panel which is accessed using an encrypted HTTPS connection.

Customer data is mirrored on another server. We can not lose data due to a hardware failure. However due to the high volumes of data and the transient nature of the data we do not keep incremental backups and can not restore any data accidentally deleted. It is your responsibility to keep backups of your important files.

FTP file transfers are not encrypted. If your data is sensitive you should consider subscribing to the optional FTPS package which provides 128bit encryption. But note that Internet Explorer does not support FTPS.

Users can only see files in their home folder and below. So if you set user John's home folder to /Suppliers/john/, John can not see any files uploaded by user Jane who has home folder /Suppliers/jane/. However the administrator login can see all the files on the system as its home folder is always at the top of the tree. This is generally useful and the way you would want it.

However it is possible to create a login that can see files uploaded by a group of users, or upload files for a group. Taking the above example supposing your employee Frank oversees all suppliers and needs to be able to download files posted by any supplier or upload files to any supplier folder you could create a login for Frank with home folder /Suppliers/, Frank can see, and upload to all folders below including /Suppliers/john/ and /Suppliers/jane/.

There is a third scenario. If you want a group of users to be able to exchange files, simply set the same home folder for all members of the group. If you want to organise files under that home folder you can make several subfolders, all visible to all the users sharing the home.

Telnet, never as it's insecure. SSH - not as part of any of the standard packages. If you're looking for SSH access you're probably looking for something other than a straight FTP site. Please call we'd be glad to quote on a custom package.

Maytech offer service from two locations: 1) London: Redbus Sovereign House, and 2) US East Coast: Net Access Corporation, Cedar Knolls NJ. Both are world class server centers with state of the art security, fire protection and redundant power. You can choose the data center on signup.

No, the minimum service period is one month. You may choose to be billed monthly, quarterly or annually. We encourage you to choose quarterly or annual billing as it saves transaction costs and there is a worthwhile saving for annual billing (12 months for the price of 11).

We invoice online. Invoices are automatically generated and your billing contact receives an e-mail with a link to our billing system, where you can view invoices and payment history and optionally pay online.

Due to processing and transaction costs we accept cheques and bank transfers for annual invoices only. Please pay monthly and quarterly invoices online.

Our terms are strictly 14 days from invoice date. Overdue accounts may be terminated without notice