Hello, happy to hear you are interested in our hosting services.  Let me see if I can tackle some of your questions:

1) Will the future upgrade be seamless w/ regard to my files and database ?

Yes, any changes or upgrades should not effect your site, unless you are using an out-data server technology that will no longer be supported. 

2) What special do u have for biz plan . u can PM me. i didn't see live chat on your site. My timezone is different from US.

There are no current specials I know of for the Business hosting plan:

http://www.lunarpages.com/business-hosting/

However, we do have the current Winter Special going on for the Basic hosting plan:

http://www.lunarpages.com/basic-hosting/

3) Do you plan to have live chat for support ?

No, we do not.  However, we do have a full time of support team working 365 days a year ready to answer any question you toss our way via the help desk.

4) Zend, Ioncube, ImageMagick support ? Versions ?

Zend Optimizer 3.3.3, Ioncube 3.1, and ImageMagick 6.4.8

5) PHP, MySQL versions ?

We support PHP 4, PHP 5 and MySQL 5

6) Pear libs accessible ?

Could you give us more information on what you need here, and would be happy to check into this for you.

7) what is the procedure for getting SSH access ?

You can get more info on this here:
http://wiki.lunarpages.com/Adding_Features/Shell

Gleam My current ftp access times out after 4 retries on upload. This will cause problem in downloading (also ?) and moving files ? Any suggestions ? It used to work fine until today. I use filezilla in passive mode.

Might try to backup via your current control panel, and grab it all at once.  Depending on what type of control panel your current host uses.

9) how to move cpanel data like emails ? Will you help ?

No, we do not.  Here is our recommendation on moves:
http://wiki.lunarpages.com/Moving_to_Lunarpages

10) Do you have a page with answers  to such questions like the knowledge base on cpanel ?

Will this work?

http://wiki.lunarpages.com

11) how do I know which plan is best, other than money reasons. e.g. what is the speed difference between basic and business hosting ? How many sites do u host on basic and business plans ? I presume both are shared.

Both Basic and Business are shared Linux-based servers. Both are even as far as server quality goes. 

12) for phpBB forum transfer, is there anything I need to pay attention to ?

Not that I know of, but you might ask around here on a seperate thread and I am sure there might be a few other forum members who might have some advice.

13) mailing list allowed ? if yes, restrictions ?

Yes, and the general e-mail limit is to keep it under 20 e-mails per minute and 200-300 per hour.

14) Procedure and time to activate domain ?

Most new domain names are active within 24-72 hours.

15) What is the use of dedicated IP for domain ? I read that google does not differentiate. Why do people offer it ?

Most people use it with Dedicated SSL certificates, since they are needed to get those installed.

16) I read in your forum about your concerns if there are images. Mine is a real estate site and will have images and videos. Any issues ?

No issues that I can think of. If there is anything else we can do for you though, please feel free to ask!

All of our hosting accounts come with a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you are not happy with the upload situation - there would be time to test it out.  The backup restore forum post you linked to in your last reply is more aimed at current customers as general advice.  We do not do server to server moves, so you will need to be responsible for downloading your old data from the old hosting account then re-uploading your data here with us.  With Pear, not all servers have the mods available, but they can be installed via your account.  This page has more info (http://wiki.lunarpages.com/Installing_PEAR_and_PEAR_Modules)

With e-mails, are you storing them all on the server side?  If so, you could easily setup a pop3 mail account with any mail client out there to download your message from the server.  That way you'd have a backup then on your PC.  Then, once your account was setup with us, you could e-mail the file back to the account you needed them on.

Hi surya,

I have followed up on your ticket and it appears one of our techs provided additional information yesterday (probably after you posted this). If you still need information please do not hesitate to reply back to that ticket and we will follow up with you.