Hi all,

Just wanted to scrawl a couple of lines to introduce myself, and also to say thanks for a great resource. You have no idea how useful it has already been to me.

Although I use the nick Speedie (long story) my name is Simon, I'm 26, and I live in Rhode Island (gawd, that sounds like a cheesey dating agency introduction!!). It wasn't always that way though, I'm originally from the UK and moved here a short while ago to get married. Obviously being a Brit I'm well suited to living with Rhode Islanders, they're the only other people in the world who think a drive longer than 5 miles calls for a picnic and a AAA TripTik!!

At the moment I'm looking at an Alabanza solution to start my business, just a bit concerned by the 50GB of data transfer with the standard package. At $5/GB for overages, and that rate only given if purchased in 25GB blocks, I could see a nasty bill building up quite quickly. Doubtless we'll sort something out though and then it'll be time for the fun stuff...like incorporating and setting merchant accounts up. I can hardly wait.

Prior to moving here I was involved in internet PC sales for the UK's largest manufacturer - ended up dealing with about $1.5 million per month in sales just before I left. So if anyone has general PC hardware questions, shout. I'm reasonably up to speed with CGI/Perl too, so again...just ask.

Look forward to being a regular here and helping to build a strong community.

Speedie.

You should be able to get bandwidth cheaper than that. The overage charges at hostmatters.com are $3 per gig (perhaps they buy in advance), keep bargaining with them. I have noticed that bandwidth is getting cheaper.

The $5/GB was if I paid in advance blocks of 25GB, otherwise $10/GB!! Ouchie.

I know that Annette/HostMatters only charge $3/GB which is why I'm trying to barter my account rep down. It's a fine line between negotiating and sticking my nose into someone else's business model though.

Annette: if you read this, please don't take offence - in fact take it as a compliment. I looked at your site because you're a well known and respected Alabanza host, and I was curious what others charge. The fact that you charge 40% less (retail) than I'm being asked to pay (wholesale) makes me wonder if I'm being taken for a ride though.

Speedie.

No offense taken at all. In fact, while we charge only $3/G overage, Alabanza will charge us $10 (or the reduced prices for blocks) should we go over . However, the economics of traffic and the reality of the bandwidth we use tells me that we will never pay Alabanza a penny for overages, although several of our clients might go over their allotment and wind up paying us. At the moment, no client has gone over their allotment, and only this forum and one individual client actually have any projection near the top of their allotment for the month - that still leaves us within our window. It's not really a dire problem.

Thanks Annette. I've heard from a few people that 500MB/customer/month is about average for real world usage, would that agree with your figures?

In his introductory email, my Alabanza rep (who has been wonderful throughout) claimed that some of their clients make as much as $75,000 per month in profits. Anyone got a view on the validity of that statement?

Speedie.

Hi Speedie

Where in R.I. are you ? I used to work in Providence :), I currently live in Fall River, MA

Anyway, a while ago I heard that GX Hosting (a Alabanza Host) Had about 7.000 costumers, so that would sum to at least 70K income ...

Hi,

I'm up in Warwick, so not a million miles from Providence. Far enough to make the wife think twice about driving there though no doubt ;-)

Thanks for the info on GX Hosting, and congrats to them if any of their staff are around the forum.

Speedie.

I would expect jumpline.com has thousands of customers too.

Thanks again.

I just checked out GXHosting.com and their signup page states:

"IN AN EFFORT TO BETTER SERVE OUR CURRENT CUSTOMERS, WE HAVE TEMPORARILY DISCONTINUED SIGNING ON NEW CUSTOMERS. PLEASE CHECK BACK WITH US SOON."

Victims of their own success from the look of it!! Nice to see a company being honest and concentrating on serving the people who pay the bills.

Speedie.

Welcome to the board..Im in New England with you:)

Excellent, thanks Dana!!

What's weird about living up here is the number of place names I recognise. Back home I lived in Evesham and there's an Evesham here, albeit in NJ. Evesham (at home) isn't far from Worcester, and a few miles away were Warwick and Birmingham. I guess it's called New England for a reason...

Best wishes,
Speedie.

Originally posted by Dana
Welcome to the board..Im in New England with you:)
*Grin* Yup the early settlers has a habit of doing that sort of thing LOL

I know people from below10host quite good, and as far as they said they have around 5,000 domains on their servers.

On my list of the most popular Alabanza hosts are jumpline.com, below10host.com, and gxhosting.com

I use to deal with below10host before and have to say that it was a great experience - smart and fast support.

I believe hostmatters.com, and hostcaters are the most popular hosts around web hosting forums, which IMHO is great!


[Edited by Bogdan on 09-05-2000 at 06:31 PM]

Well for traffic charges I do not see how you can not have over usage. If you have any decent amount of clients then the server will (if you stick with your agreement) use more than 50gig mo. I don't use Alabanza , I have DI and so im stuck with the 95% but that doesnt mean i still dont break the 50gig mark. In fact on a typical month I push in real usage about 120gig out. Of course the 95% says about 330 or so but thats a different story. In real usage, if you have enough clients to need another server then you will use more than 50 gig. I have 4 servers now and adding more, Not all use or break the 50gig mark yet, but Im willing to bet 10:1 they will. If you do the math , put 150 sites to a server :
at ave of 500mb thats the 75gig mark. And I guarantee if you offer up to 4 or 5 gig you will have some (about 8%) that will use it, the others may use only 500mb, 1 gig , or just 100mb. Be prepared, do not ever bet on the fact you will not have to pay extra. Just be careful

Thanks to everyone for the help and advice on this subject. It has helped to reassure me that I won't go over my limit within a couple of weeks of starting up at least!!

Thanks again,
Speedie.

So Speedie ...

What's the name of your future Web Hosting Business ? I just started my own not long ago, I'm using Alabanza, and so far I'm very happy (the subdomains issue is the only thing I'm not very happy about)

Originally posted by jaguar
Well for traffic charges I do not see how you can not have over usage. If you have any decent amount of clients then the server will (if you stick with your agreement) use more than 50gig mo. I don't use Alabanza , I have DI and so im stuck with the 95% but that doesnt mean i still dont break the 50gig mark. In fact on a typical month I push in real usage about 120gig out. Of course the 95% says about 330 or so but thats a different story. In real usage, if you have enough clients to need another server then you will use more than 50 gig. I have 4 servers now and adding more, Not all use or break the 50gig mark yet, but Im willing to bet 10:1 they will. If you do the math , put 150 sites to a server :
at ave of 500mb thats the 75gig mark. And I guarantee if you offer up to 4 or 5 gig you will have some (about 8%) that will use it, the others may use only 500mb, 1 gig , or just 100mb. Be prepared, do not ever bet on the fact you will not have to pay extra. Just be careful

OK. Well lets do the math. I will step up the estimations. Say you have 150 clients using a full 1 gig a piece after you average it out. Say you have different accounts but it averages out to $15 per client.

Thats 150 * $15 = $2250 gross income

Thats also 100gigs over the alloted amount. At $5 per gig.

100 * $5 = $500 worth of bandwith.

So if you take the $400-$800mth you are paying for the server and add the $500 woth of extra bandwith you get $900-$1400 cost.

$2250gross - $900 to $1400cost and you profit $850 to $1350.

I never said you wouldnt make money, read carefully. I just said you would pay for extra traffic, in my case i get hit with the 95% 330 gig, do that math. Luckily I have more than one server to pull the weight.

I understood that you didn't say that money wouldn't be made but I just felt like posting the exact profit figures so that everyonw would realize what to expect.

By the way what is the 95% I keep hearing so much about? I don't understand what is meant by it.

Oh its hard to explain and let you understand without charts and first hand experience. Stay away from it if you can is all I can really say

Wow, really started something here hmmm? *wink*

To answer Carlos's question, I can't divulge the name at present I'm afraid. Or I could but then I'd have to either a) kill you or b) condemn you to a life of being hosted by *****....your choice. I'd take (a) personally.

The Alabanza contract was in my mailbox this morning, so I'm off to get coffee and have a read.

Thanks again to everyone for their help.
Speedie.