Final Word on Donhost

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Posted by WebSnail.net, 07-13-2001, 11:36 PM
I had prepared a long, well thought out explanation of why I've decided to leave Donhost but on reflection it all boils down to a few of simple points. Communication: - of changes in service functionality such as reseller account creation (never received) - of changes in service provision (24/7 support down to office hours weekdays only) (informed after the fact) - listening to feedback/bug-reports provided by your customers and acting on them (ignored for weeks) Donhost, specifically Mr Daniel Conlon do not communicate effectively if at all. If you are a reseller on server 6 then you are likely to find yourself faced with little or no certainty as to whether your accounts are actually being created. whether something hasn't been changed again on the control panel. That CPU limits haven't been tightened... Why?.. because they DON'T TELL YOU! In short you will not be told a great deal about any of the things that are absolutely 100% essential for you to use the service properly and provide for you customers. So, I've left, effective today... buyer be warned.... If you want the full, drawn out reason explanation then please ask I'd be happy to provide you with it...
Posted by theatis, 07-14-2001, 02:52 PM
WebSnail.net may I ask you how do you resell with now?
Posted by WebSnail.net, 07-14-2001, 03:12 PM
I've gone for a belt and braces approach now. Marc at McHost.com has been very helpful and has true 24/7 support whilst I'm waiting on an additional account with Flump.net. Both are pretty new but they are well thought of and I'm prepared to risk some small hiccups instead of the deliberate stone walling I got elsewhere. Hope that helps somewhat. Oh and I'll give an honest appraisal of both in a couple of months in case anyone is interested.
Posted by theatis, 07-14-2001, 03:24 PM
Dear WebSnail.net if you just left donhost going to flump.net means returning to donhost. It seems they are reselling from donhost. I've done a search using a smartwhois and it ended to Daniel Conlon from donhost!
Posted by WebSnail.net, 07-14-2001, 03:35 PM
Heh heh... And you honestly think I wouldnt check that first... The reason I MET Flump.net's Craig was because he's moved to a dedicated server... In fact right now he's playing with it... talk about excited :-) That is actually my back up option which is part of a deal we've agreed. It helps me feel safer and I can spread my clients around a little too. But, yeah I know that at the moment it looks like he's still there... Don't worry I have been checking things 6 ways to Sunday and then checking again just to be sure I'm not dreaming... Donhost left me a nervous wreck with a bad gut feel after just 3 days so the fact that I'm already sleeping properly, given my current paranoia levels seems to indicate I've made a good choice. Hope that clears that little one up.
Posted by GordonH, 07-14-2001, 04:13 PM
Hello Take some advice from someone who has been there and bought the T-shirt (not with Donhost, but other hosts). You will never be truly happy as a reseller if your final aim is to run a hosting business. If you are a web designer then a reseller plan probably makes sense. If not, go out and lease a dedicated server. The risk is much smaller than you would think: Cost: $300 - $400 per month (seems to be market rate) Setup: $300 First Month total: $600 - $700 Sell annual plans at $100 per annum. Sell 6 plans in the first month and you have just about broken even. Then you can start offering monthly plans and all the rest. Thats how I got over the cashflow hump. That way you can determine what support you need and want to provide to your customers. If you look at $400 per month. You could put 200 accounts on that machine with a cost of $2 per account. No reseller plan will come close to that. [disclaimer]My company does not provide dedicated servers so I have no vested interest in this. In fact as we provide reseller plans this could well be a case of shooting myself in the foot.... [/disclaimer] Gordon
Posted by WebSnail.net, 07-14-2001, 05:48 PM
heh heh... yeah and ain't those T-shirts expensive Actually as it happens I'm back in University as a "mature" student and it's final year time coming up so I've deliberately kept myself low profile with only enough clients wanting site design to get some money, improve my skills and not overstretch myself... As a result I haven't the money or time to commit to a dedicated server... That said, I am making notes on the dedicated server providers around now and will be watching to see who will still be around and providing the good stuff in a year or so's time. Thanks for the advice though... always appreciated.
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 02:43 AM
Hi WebSnail.net, How long have you been with Donhost? I currently have an account with it but only 20 days, and wonder whether or not it'll really refund my payment like it promises if I cancel that account within my first month. I had, started early last month, an account with 9kd.net, at $15 a year, which was a reseller of donhost's. And then 9kd.net's account was removed by Donhost for whatever reason regarding payment, and so was my account. The result is that I had only around 25 day's hosting service from 9kd.net with that $15.
Posted by MCHost-Marc, 07-15-2001, 02:56 AM
They were removed because they offered more bandwidth than their reseller account allowed ...and donhost is bitchy about overages
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 03:13 AM
Thanks kiwi. Payment problem is what 9kd.net told me in its last email to members. 9kd.net said some spammer even consumed more than 50 gig a day. So you're right. I guess someone out there used to take 9kd.net's *unlimited* offer to resell webspace or host adult websites which usually have huge traffic. Donhost charges 15 pound (aroung US$21) per extra gig bandwidth, that's pretty expensive and scaring.
Posted by GordonH, 07-15-2001, 04:04 AM
Hello The 15 punds is about average per GB. We pay about £6/GB for our UK servers which is about the lowest it goes. Some are as high as 40 and I know that we get a lot of refugees froma company that charges £25. Plus there will be VAT at 17.5% to ass to that if you live in the EU. Gordon
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 04:34 AM
Hi GordonH, Really! It's no more than $5 or $6 per gig in US. So it looks like it's better to get hosting wholesale providers in US than England.
Posted by GordonH, 07-15-2001, 04:46 AM
Yes Actually we pay about $3 per GB in the US. One of our data centers is even less than that. We have servers in the US for our US brand and servers in the UK for our UK brand. We manage to keep the costs the same by buying bandwidth in advance to keep the UK prices down. Gordon
Posted by WebSnail.net, 07-15-2001, 08:06 AM
I was with them for a very long 6 weeks. I can see no reason why they wouldn't refund your money as per their stated policy unless you'd broken any part of the agreement. I can't comment on 9kd as I know nothing about their circumstances. I do know that Donhost have a policy of shutting down resellers that break the rules.. Which I suppose is fair enough. It's unfortunate if this happens because of one of a resellers clients though as all the innocent ones suffer, including the reseller Hmm, not sure if I'm reading this right but if you paid your money to 9kd.net and you don't have an account directly through Donhost then your issue is with 9kd.net not Donhost. You can't hold them responsible for the actions of your reseller. Hope that helps
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 01:41 PM
Thank you all.
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 04:32 PM
Hi Gordon, Do you rent dedicated servers or do colocation with your own machines? What's the usual cost of hardware through VDI? Which way do you like better? Thanks.
Posted by GordonH, 07-15-2001, 04:54 PM
Hello We now have a mix of owned and leased servers. It really depends on the situation. We have a good colo agreement with a comapny in New York and will be buying and colocating servers there shortly because its cheaper than leasing. However, leasing has various advantages and we will continue to lease the servers we currently have. I don't know too much about VDI because I don't deal with them directly, but its unlikely we will have any more servers in that data centre. The good thing about leasing is you can upgrade the equipment more easily - you won't be left with a redundant machine in some far off country. Gordon
Posted by checkall, 07-15-2001, 06:44 PM
Hi Gordon, I was told las week that Interserver is VDI's largest client with 105 servers colocation there, and its owner is only 16 years old, a very successful young player in this young industry! I've found many people in this forum deal with one of those providers like Alabanza, VDI, and Burst. It's probably because they provide hosts with a nice control panel, called CPanel or WebPanel. I personally have an account with HostRocket, which turned to VDI from Alabanza. CPanel is really nice but cannot work with FreeBSD. Do you know any similar control panel which would work with BSD as well? HostRocket's customer registration procedure is fully automated. I guess yours is too, right? I am on my way to sell web space, instead of free hosting, which is boring now. Nice talk to you and I've learned a lot. Last edited by checkall; 07-15-2001 at 06:51 PM.
Posted by GordonH, 07-16-2001, 02:39 AM
Hello We don't use a fully automated process. I am not sure about Hostrocket, but the only automation I have seen for Cpanel automates the sign up but the accounts still have to be manually approved. Actually, once you have been in this business for a while you will realise that manual sign up is by far the safest option as the human brain can weekd out domains like "warez-hacker.com" which a computer couldn't. We have another brand that does instant sign up (1minutewebhost.com) Gordon
Posted by checkall, 07-16-2001, 02:03 PM
Thanks Gordon.
Posted by horoscopes2000, 07-17-2001, 07:31 AM
Lordy! Data transfer is expensive in the UK! Makes me even more glad I live in the USA now. I have a dedicated RaQ3 with 4webspace.com and pay $99 per month for 100GB, and any overages are $3 per GB.
Posted by GordonH, 07-17-2001, 07:44 AM
A lot of people in the UK host in East coast USA for this very reason. We get a lot of trade from people who need large bandwidth and just can't afford it here. We put them on US servers and in one case their bills went down from £1000 (pounds) per month to 200 pounds per month with no noticeable loss in speed. Gordon
Posted by horoscopes2000, 07-17-2001, 08:11 AM
btw, glad to hear business is good Gordon. I have seen your posts in AWW for quite a long time, and noticed your usually one of the more helpful, less scathing ppl in there. Tina seems to have disappeared though. Perhaps she got tired of all those flames?
Posted by GordonH, 07-17-2001, 08:28 AM
I don't often look at AWW these days because its a bit of a swamp....... Gordon
Posted by Craig, 07-17-2001, 09:46 AM
Whats AWW?
Posted by GordonH, 07-17-2001, 10:00 AM
Alt.Www.Webmaster (AWW) Its a newsgroup where anyone who works in the Internet is consdered a spammer......... Gordon
Posted by thednt, 07-17-2001, 02:40 PM
Try www.interhost.co.uk. Been a customer of theirs for over two months. Excellent service, quality responses, half-decent siteadmin tool and you can host _ALMOST_ anything.
Posted by horoscopes2000, 07-17-2001, 04:44 PM
Gordon, re yelling "spam!" I know what you mean with AWW. They seem to jump on it quite quickly and some ppl yell spam before they think. I have been using a sigfile identical to the one below for a little while and have stayed out of trouble, but there are quite a few people who blatantly post ads.
Posted by checkall, 07-17-2001, 09:47 PM
Hi Gordon, What's the best deal in colocation and dedicated server, like price of bandwidth, leasing fees, and the quality of machines, that you love or have been looking for as a hosting retailer? Probably you won't consider servers in west coast of US because it's far from UK so that servers may look slower accessed from UK, just like UK sites all are slower accessed from west coast of US, will you?
Posted by markymark, 07-18-2001, 05:49 AM
Hi, the cheapest overage price I have seen is 3 quid per GB at Internetters. Just thought you might like to know Mark
Posted by CoreyC, 07-20-2001, 06:43 PM
Flump.net no longer resells through Donhosts. The are (and have been the past week) moving all of their donhost accounts to their new dedicated server
Posted by GordonH, 07-21-2001, 02:36 AM
Hello We do put UK sites on US servers under particular circumstances. For example, our domain parking service is in the USA. Also we do a bit of hosting for shareware distributors and can give them US/UK mirrors. On the bandwidth issue, its abot £6/GB. I don't think Intenetters do colocation so they wouldn't be much help. I am using Ultraspeed for UK colocation. Monthly prices are less than the cost of leasing a US server but you have the up front prices of the machine. Gordon
Posted by BenDoherty, 07-21-2001, 07:59 PM
Gordon, you were saying about how most people in the UK host in the US die to bandwith and such. I need reseller plan a bit like donhosts (of course not unlimited) wondering where you would say was a good place in the US. Thanx Anyway Ben
Posted by checkall, 07-21-2001, 08:48 PM
Datapacket is, as I know, the only US provider like donhost. Check it at http://www.datapacket.net/ntresell.htm. It's Window NT system, instead of Unix, powered by Hosting Controler software. Since the company writting Hosting Controler is working on Unix version of the program, we'll probably see Donhost-like-US-Unix-hosting-reseller plan rolling out soon. Last edited by checkall; 07-22-2001 at 06:09 PM.
Posted by BenDoherty, 07-21-2001, 08:51 PM
Yea ive seen them, but their live help is never working and they never reply to e-mails so want am i to think?
Posted by Eladesor, 07-22-2001, 06:06 PM
I been using DataPacket for about six weeks and (despite some of the posting in this forum) have found them to be O.K. Agreed, the live helper is never 'on' but the longest I've waited for a reply to an email is 30 mins. Regards to the group Eladesor
Posted by BenDoherty, 07-22-2001, 06:11 PM
so u reeckon its ok? i just wanna talk to them and its never working
Posted by Eladesor, 07-22-2001, 06:24 PM
I've read numerous 'fors / againsts' in this forum - but can only relay to you how I have found them. Believe me, I've had some mega-bad experiences with other hosting companies and would glady give anyone the truth about them - but until (which I hope they dont) DataPacket foul up, I can only say they been OK with me - The only problems I have experienced is occasional 'down times', but in fairness I've let ride as they wrote in a recent reseller news letter that they had been ungrading the system and implenting MySql. Hope this helps. Eladesor.
Posted by Kran, 12-26-2001, 08:42 PM
Well just to say that i have done some business with nameroute.com and found you guys are doing GREAT WORK! fast support and your domain plus its a good product for small clients and students. Keep up the good work!!
Posted by SoftWareRevue, 12-26-2001, 08:47 PM
What's this thread doing back up here?

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