"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." John Ruskin, 1819-1900
Webhosting:
In the internet business there are a few pitfalls. One of the most common is
the usage of the word "unlimited", there are internet providers that
offer you "unlimited" service for just a few dollars, here is what
"unlimited" really means for them and why you should not fall for
it.
Just picture this you buy Apple's at wholesale you pay $150 for one Ton off
apples, the normal supermarket retails Apple's in a 5lb. bag for roughly $3.00.
Now a new Supermarket opens with a special offer: "unlimited" apples
for just $5.00 and at first business seems to go well because most people don't
really eat that many apples and even so they pay $5.00 they will most likely
only use apples for less than $3.00 but what happens when people start to eat
more apples. It usually goes like that: you pay your $5.00 to enter the store
and then you have to line up at the big apple box, everyone can take one apple
and then line up again, like rides in any major theme park. The interest of
the owner is to get as many people in the store as possible because the more
people get in the store the more money he makes, there will be apples in the
store, but to get them you will have to line up over and over again.
Do you want your customers to stand in line for Apple's?
The internet works much the same way, bandwidth no matter if in wholesale or retail, is usually sold in one of two ways, either by total usage or by a maximum available bandwidth. So if someone is trying to sell you "unlimited" bandwidth for $9.95 something must be wrong, you cannot sell something that maybe costs you $500.00 or more for $9.95. So what do these companies do to limit the usage in a way that they still make their cut. There is a number of ways to limit the bandwidth, actually used by one website, one of the easiest comes natural by many people sharing the same server, the interface of the server becomes the line for your customers to line up and the longer the line get the less people can take the "ride" but still everybody has to pay the same entry fee. One of the other ways to limit the usage in the fine print of the contract, you cannot believe how many limitations one can pack into the innocent looking contract. Last but not least the right to cancel abusive, means "well visited", websites. Basically when you try to use what they sell you become an "abuser".
Now let's take the view from the others side:
You have a server with a flat rate ten mbit interface for that server you have
to pay $399.00 per month a, basically traffic for this server is "unlimited"
because you don't have to pay extra for the amount of traffic the machine can
create if you sell 40 hosting packages each for $9.95, costs are covered. But
what happens if you can put 50, 60 or hundred or more customers on the same
server?
Will they still get the same performance? No.
Will they really have unlimited traffic? No!
Will you make the more money the worse the service gets for your customers?
Yes!
So what do you have to think about companies that make offers like that?
We think you deserve prices that really reflect the costs involved and that
are able to give you the performance you need.
If it sounds to be to good to be true; It most likely is!
"Buy not what you want, but what you need; what you do not need is
expensive at a penny."
Cato,
234-149 BC, Relique
The second often underestimated problem is, the level of service you need.
Most hosting plans today offer no or close to no service. Our hosting plans
include at least some service, If you don't think you need that service, we
can tell you where you can get a good deal, If you want we can even set your
service up or perform the regular system checks and maintenance, our hosting
plans certainly include all of that.
If you need to more then 20GB of traffic per month we can make you a special
offer for your needs.
Quotes to find the right price compiled by Rob Kall