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CUSTOMER SUPPORT

How do I sign up for online bill pay? 

Our online bill pay is handled through SmartHub. To access it, click ‘My Account’ at the top of the screen. We have a step by step guide located here to get you started. If you would like step by step guidance over the phone our customer service agents would be happy to help 24/7 at 541-754-7325.

Get Started with SmartHub (My Account)

How can I register?
To get started, you’ll need your account number, last name, and email address.

1. Click the “My Account” link at the top of our website and
2. Select the link next to “New User?” link at the bottom of the Login Page.
3. Setting up a SmartHub account will allow you to view past invoices, set up ACH, Auto Pay, or set up email billing.
4. You will need your Account Number, the last name on the account or the business name, and an email address to sign up.
5. You will need to validate your account by answering a question about it, then establish two security questions.
6. Verify your account with either the amount due from your prior bill, or the zip code associated with the account.
7. Once registration is complete, an email will be sent with a temporary password that will be required for your first login. You will be prompted to change this password after logging in successfully.

Setting up AutoPay

Getting started with AutoPay is easy! Once set up, AutoPay will process your payment on the 15th of every month. If the 15th happens to fall on a holiday or weekend, your payment will be processed on the following business day.

1. Select Pay my bill
2. Select Auto Pay Accounts from the navigation on the left.
3. Click the Sign Up for Auto Pay link.
4. Select Card or Bank Account and enter your information in order to pay for services each month.

Click the “My Account” button at the top of your screen to give SmartHub a try! If you have any questions or issues, please give our Customer Service a call at 800-731-4871.

Can I pay my bill over the phone? 

We are committed to keep you and your information safe and secure, due to this we cannot accept payment over the phone. We offer an easy-to-use system called SmartHub that is safe, secure and can manage your payments. 

What is SmartHub? 

SmartHub gives PEAK Internet customers the ability to manage their account anytime, anywhere on their mobile device or on the Web. As a PEAK customer, through SmartHub you have the option to pay your bill, check your usage, report service issues and contact us, right at your fingertips. 

Does SmartHub have a mobile app? 

Yes, Smarthub includes apps for both android and apple. To get the app just search your app store for SmartHub by National Information Solutions Cooperative. There you can register a new account or pay your bill with an existing account. As always if you do need any help call our support center 24/7 at 541-754-7325. 

How can I make my bills paperless? 

Within SmartHub and under the tab My Profile there is an option to enroll you in our paperless billing service. You can receive your bill via any valid email address that you choose. You can also call our customer service department 24/7 at 541-754-7325 and they would be happy to make this switch for you. 

Fiber

If you are having connectivity issues with your fiber connection, please call customer service at this time. 541-754-PEAK (7325)

Fixed Wireless

If you think that your Fixed Wireless connection has failed, the first course of action is to perform a power cycle of your home network, to rule out any local issues. Power cycling in this manner is better, as it allows any connection that previously existed to completely drop, and takes into account the time it may take for a new connection to be created before you attempt to connect.

1. Unplug the power cords to your POE and your router if you have one.
2. Wait a full three minutes, and then plug in your POE back into power. 
3. Wait a full two minutes, and then plug in your router.
4. Wait thirty seconds and then check your connection for connectivity.

If this basic troubleshooting does not resolve your problem, try another device or power cycle the device you are using to try and connect, or give us a call!

Dial-Up

Dial-up is an olderservice that is primarily used as a backup connection, or where no other options are available as the internet really isn’t developed for dial-up anymore.

1. Restart the computer.
2. Check the line for dial-tone, remove any splitters that may be between the computer and the jack.
3. Confirm that the line from the modem to the wall is  in good condition and shorter than six feet. Ensure that both ends are not corroded, and clip firmly into the back of the computer and the wall jack. If your dial-up modem has two ports, ensure you are selecting the one for the modem.

If you find yourself frequently disconnecting from dial-up, disable any Call Waiting features you may have on the line, as these will interrupt your session.

If you need additional help troubleshooting, give us a call!

Wi-Fi Signal Interference

So many of our favorite devices require solid wireless connectivity to be their best, but not all of the corners of your home are wireless-friendly.

Diagnosing Wireless Interference

Wireless interference can have many symptoms. Maybe your audio is choppy, delayed or cutting out during your web meetings. Perhaps you can’t stream videos from the den, or you’ve noticed that your phone can’t connect to the wireless when you’re in the kitchen or the Roku in the kids’ room takes forever to load channels.

These are things that may indicate that wireless interference is affecting YOU. There are a number of complicated and time-consuming solutions that you could try to resolve the issue. You could wire your entire home for ethernet connectivity, or install expensive range extenders… OR you could let us solve the problem for you.

Our Total Home Premium managed wireless solution is installed by professionals who can heat-map your entire home and determine the best placements to access points and customize your in-home personalized wireless solution.

Residential Voice Subscriber Guide

Password Security

Using strong and secure passwords is important to keep your account secure. Use a different password for each of your accounts and avoid re-using passwords.

If someone guesses the password for your Netflix account, and you’ve used the same password on your email and banking accounts,  that person could potentially gain access to everything.

Create a unique password that is unrelated to any personal information and uses a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols and have your password be more than eight characters in length. Avoid using simple words or phrases like “password” or “letmein” and avoid using keyboard patterns like “qwerty” or “1234”. Sequential patterns like “abcd1234” or “12341234” make your password easier to guess.

One of the more common ways to create a password is to select a random words or phrase, then jazz it up with capital letters, numbers or symbols.

For this example I have selected the words Potato and Flake, and jazzed my password until it is P0t8oh-!f|aKe. 

Once you have created a strong password, keep it safe. Writing your passwords down isn’t very secure or any good if you lose track of what you’ve written it on. If you can’t keep track of your passwords, give a password manager like our PasswordGenie a try.

Phishing and how not to get caught

Scammers use a wide variation of tactics to try and trick you into giving them your personal information. They want to trick you into giving them your passwords, account numbers, or other sensitive information that they can use to gain access into your accounts.

Oftentimes you’ll receive a message that looks like it is a company you know or trust. It may say that it is a Social Media site, your bank, credit card company, delivery service or an online store. Be suspicious of any email you receive that you are not expecting. 

Sometimes an email just doesn’t look right. Maybe it is formatted strangely, the grammar is awkward or there are spelling mistakes. Maybe the logo isn’t centered or it just doesn’t look or sound like other emails from the same source. Trust your instincts here!

Phishing emails always have a call to action that encourages the reader to take action IMMEDIATELY. This is the second red flag! 

If an email has a link that asks you to fill out information hover over the link to check where it is going. Pay close attention to spelling, facebook.securetee.com is NOT the same as facebook.com. You can also avoid links altogether by using your bookmarks!

If an email gets caught in the spam filter and you were expecting it, feel free to release it. If an email you weren’t expecting gets caught in the spam filter, take a good look at it. If the email was sent by a friend, make sure that the “reply to” is the correct email address before responding.

And if you ever have any question, we’re happy to put our eyes on an email and do our best to verify authenticity.

Infected with Malware or Virus?

If you think you’ve been infected with malware or a virus, the best thing to do is to isolate that computer from any network immediately – unplug the ethernet cord or disconnect from the wireless connection. This will prevent anything new from being installed or gathered from the machine.

Once the computer has been isolated from the internet and anything on the network, it is time to look into recovery. Your path forward here depends on how bad the infection is, and how it is affecting the computer. Some bad infections require a computer technician and potentially a reinstallation of the operating system, while other infections can be handled by our Tech Home and Total Tech services.

Once your computer has been recovered, we recommend a good security suite like our Tech Home package to help lock your computer down. Once you have the Tech Home service installed, Total Tech can help you remove infections.

Backing up your website

Backing up your website helps prevent data loss if anything unfortunate occurs. Backups are especially important if your site is built on a Content Management System like WordPress where you also have a database to worry about too.

Backing up your website will prevent the loss of all the work you’ve put into your site, prevent the investment of time or funds to rebuild, and reduce any revenue lost during downtime.

There are multiple ways to backup your site, 

Manual Backups

Manually download all files and backup your database to a computer, and then zip it for storage on a local machine or in cloud storage.

Backup Manager

Both Plesk and CPanel have a built-in backup manager and will backup both the files and database, but storage is defaulted to the hosting platform and may not always have external storage options. This also uses storage from the hosting package, so you may need to go in and prune backups from time to time.

Backup Plugin

If you have a CMS like WordPress, you can choose one of the many backup plugin options that exist with both free and paid plugins. The bonus to this is that you can store locally on the hosting platform, or use cloud storage for your backups.

Whatever backup method you use, these should be done regularly. A site that changes frequently should be done more often, but if your site goes weeks to months without changes, you can get away with doing a backup every couple of months. It is also good practice to run backups.

In the event your backups fail, Peak does have access to backups and may be able to assist with the restoration of your site.

WordPress

Setting up SSL

HTTPS or Secure HTTP is an encryption method that secures the connection between your user’s browser and the server your site is hosted on. This makes it harder for hackers to reach your customers through your website.

Any site without an SSL Certificate will be marked as not secure, and may miss out on SEO benefits, or leave your customers or readers with a bad impression.

Before you get started, back up your content and database.

Start off by either setting up Let’s Encrypt, or requesting an SSL Certificate from Customer Service.

To set up Let’s Encrypt for Plesk:

1. Log into your Hosting Panel.
2. Select Let’s Encrypt.
3. Enter your email address in the Email Address field.
4. Select the checkboxes for the following Select what else can be secured options:
   1. Include the “www” subdomain for the domain and each selected alias
   2. Issue a wildcard SSL/TLS certificate.
5. Click the Install button.
6. The next screen will add a record to DNS. If you manage your DNS outside of the hosting package, you will need to add this record before you continue.
7. Click the Continue button. If the next page gives you an error, repeat the steps above.

To set up Let’s Encrypt for CPanel:

1. Log into your hosting panel.
2. Select SSL/TLS Status
3. Check everything and click the Run AutoSSL.

If you have any issues with this process, we can help you up to this point.

Use a Plugin to do the rest

You can use a WordPress plugin instead of a number of manual steps. Using something like Really Simple SSL is easier. Feel free to use any other SSL plugin if you’d rather.

1. Download Really Simple SSL, there is a base edition.
2. Log into WordPress
3. Install the plugin and activate it.

This should make the SSL Certificate work on your site. You may see that there is mixed content – this is usually where something has been hard-linked and will need to be fixed manually but can also be caused by settings in other plugins.

Protecting your Installation & The Importance of locking it down

Once you have your WordPress site set up the way you want it, locking it down will help you keep it secure.

Install a security plugin

Installing a security plugin can help you lock down your WordPress installation and usually come with a full kit of recommendations to secure your content. If you do one thing, install a security plugin!

Lock down the Theme Editor

The Theme Editor in WordPress is an extremely powerful tool because it gives access to any of the code in your website. We recommend disabling this completely when not in use, as hackers can use this to access any of the data in your site, or use it to attack other sites or  distribute malware. If you’re not using the theme editor, it is good practice to lock it down.

You can disable the Theme Editor by adding the following code to the .htaccess file:

define( ‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true );

Limit Login Attempts

Limiting login attempts can prevent a hacker from brute forcing the password. This will block their IP for a temporary period of time based on settings that you define/

This will need to be done by installing a plugin, but is also easily bypassed if a hacker is using a VPN.

Adjust file permissions on the wp-config.php and .htaccess files

Adjusting the file permissions of the wp-config.php and .htaccess files can help prevent an attacker from gaining access to your installation. This should be done by an experienced individual, as you can quickly take down your functioning website by setting the wrong permission type.

Some plugins will require different levels of permissions for these files, so your settings may differ.

Disable XML-RPC

The XML-RPC file allows posts from a WordPress app on a mobile device and permits trackbacks and pingbacks. This can be used as an attack vector if an attacker finds a vulnerability. 

Be aware that some plugins DO use this, so only disable if it isn’t in use.

To Disable XML-RPC, add the following code to your .htaccess file:

# Disable WordPress xmlrpc.php

<Files xmlrpc.php>

order deny,allow

 deny from all

 allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

</Files>

If you want to allow access from a specific IP, replace allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP address, otherwise remove this line.