Our upstream providers for the NZ Domain Manager system, Dreamscape Networks, are in the process of migrating to a new domain management and hosting platform. As part of this upgrade, clients with hosted websites and email on this platform will also be migrated across to a newer and more modern hosting platform. Clients will know if they are on this hosting platform if they normally log into the www.controlpanel.co.nz control panel to manage their email or website settings. These hosting clients will need to adjust some settings and may need to make modifications to their configurations and websites when this change takes place. Most clients on this platform using hosted email will need to update their email settings in their email software.
Some websites, especially older ones may not work properly on the updated platform, so clients may need to engage with their website developer to make modifications if needed. In some cases clients may find that is may not be possible to update the websites software due to the age of the code. Some clients are using websites that are well over a decade old and maybe using older software that may have long since stopped being supported. Please note that some of the PHP and MySQL software versions on the old hosting platform which a few clients are still using, are very old and ceased being supported many years ago, and most hosting providers no longer provide them either. Some of them are now a security risk and can no longer continue to be used, and will not be able to be used on the new platform. All clients using old PHP versions will be migrated onto new PHP versions. Overall the hosting platform is more modern and will have more features.
For clients who have been been exceeding their hosting plans diskspace storage quotas, and are therefore paying for extra diskspace storage, these hosting accounts will be moved to hosting plans that will accommodate this additional diskspace you are using. The default hosting price will be an new updated updated price of $50 + GST per month. However because these clients won't be paying for diskspace storage overages, the overall cost will be lower. We are only able to do this because our hosting providers are moving to a new and more modern upstream provider whose servers can better manage users with high disk space needs.
Please note that even with rising inflation, we have rarely increased any of our prices over the many years we have been operating. Also no client will be paying more for their web or email hosting after this upgrade, compared to what they were paying prior to it. This is despite the massive inflation New Zealand has experienced over the last few years, which has also increased our own costs.
Any clients currently on existing 'CPanel' branded hosting plans for websites/email will not be affected by the hosting / email migration. So only domain names will be migrated for those clients who also have their domains registered through us. So all it will mean for those CPanel clients is that they will use a different control panel to log into their domains.