Ok, I am finally down to my final 2 selections for my hosting needs, and would like HONEST imput from the experts and users here....thanks in advance.

I am considering the following:

1) AletiaHosting
2) FutureQuest

Both appear to be good companies with good forum exchange. Both appear to offer about the same packages but Aletia is less costly, however I am not only looking for costs but also quality (speed, service, uptime...and so on)

For those using either one, please tell me the good and bad.
For those who have passed them both up, why?

You may email me if you do not wish to post publically.

I will gather the info and join one of these 2 tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for all the advice, help, and direction.

Michael
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Thats a tough one.
They are both very good companys!

Maybe someone who knows a bit more than I could take a look at both and let me know if there are any major differences between the 2, besides price.

I have literally spent over 40 hours trying to educate myself by reading all kinds of reports, forums, newsgroups, web packages, TOS's.....I am wiped out!

I too believe they are both good, but as far as packages are concerned and the little "added value" of each is where I fail to understand....and when one charges about 2x more than the other for what looks like a very comperable package, I get worried that I am missing something.

Thanks, as always for the expert insights...

Mike
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I don't think anyone on the forums would disagree that FutureQuest has a good reputation as a host, but you might want to check their forums for additional info, experiences, etc. Seems many priase Aletia as well here, though I'm not sure they have forums to look through or not.

I am with Aletia right now. So far I can say that my experience has been positive. Almost no problems with my account, and very little downtime that I've noticed. I haven't tried futurequest so I will not say anything about them.

Aletia does have support forums. Support is friendly, and prompt. But yes, they do offer quite a bit of features at an affordable price compared to many other hosts, which made me a bit skeptical before i signed up, but so far it's been good.

I dont know about Aletia BUT futurequest is a very fine company. If you read from their forum, a lot of their customers are growing too big from their largest account and THEY DONT WANT to switch host and is willing to pay for extra MB of webspace and bandwidth.

If you can afford it, go for it. Regarding their uptime, you can see the uptime for all their server in one of the pages. Service is definately good, no doubt.

I have been with Aletia for about a month and I have been monitoring their downtime since then. It is currently at 0.33% over 33 days.

Couldn't comment on their support - haven't used it yet.

Thanks for the info, but I have a question.

Does your downtime calculate out to about 2.5 hours?

(33 x 24hours x .33% = 2.6 hours downtime)

If so, is 4 minutes/day (average) downtime acceptable?

It would seem so to me. :)

After stong consideration, I have decided to go wil Aletia. The decsion was VERY difficult but since they are about half the price, it all came down to money. Heck, if I do not like them after a short time, I can always switch.

Thanks for the info,
Mike
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Here are the detailed stats. My personal requirement is for 0.5% or less downtime. And so far, Aletia is one of only three hosts, I know of, that meet this criteria.

Time/Date Locale: UK (GMT+1)


MySite.com at Aletia(HTTP) DOWN TIME STATS:
-----------------------------------
Summary fr: 07/08/01 12:23:20
to: 09/09/01 20:27:53
h:mm
Total Time = 800:04
Down Time = 2:36 (0.325%)
Shortest = 0:04
Longest = 1:17 (on 12/08/01 09:13:48)
Fails = 10
___________________________________
Monthly Totals:
Fails h:mm %
2001/08 9 2:31 0.338 *
2001/09 1 0:05 0.012 *
___________________________________
Recent Down Times (h:mm):

07/09/01 16:39 - 16:44 = 0:05
23/08/01 03:38 - 03:44 = 0:05
22/08/01 02:10 - 02:16 = 0:05
16/08/01 07:12 - 07:24 = 0:11
15/08/01 22:45 - 22:50 = 0:05
13/08/01 22:25 - 22:59 = 0:34
13/08/01 21:59 - 22:03 = 0:04
12/08/01 09:13 - 10:31 = 1:17
12/08/01 08:41 - 08:46 = 0:05
10/08/01 16:27 - 16:32 = 0:05

* denotes incomplete data for period
___________________________________
Stats with EyeOnSite v1.2.0

Thanks for the info...

You and others have made my decision of who to select for my first host company an easier one.

Thank you and all the others.....

This forum is GREAT and never get rid of it.

Mike
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I guess I'm too late to help, but I just joined FutureQuest, and I'm satisfied so far. I like their control panel, mainly because it works for me (unlike Cpanel), and also because it's not by Alabanza which has security problems. I also like the large amount of transfer I get and I like the increments of increased bandwith/prices of their other packages. I still had problems with my version of FormMail, which apparently works only on Hypermart, but it may be due to curruption during transfer, and I was able to upload and customize a newer version of FormMail and I now have no problem.

Last night I discovered http://uptime.netcraft.com. Take a look.

Well, it was a very difficult choice, to say the least.

I learned a while ago to never look back and second guess yourself, otherwise you will never be happy with what you have.

If things do not work out (but my gut tells me they will), I can always change. This web sote is not my livelyhood so I can put up with a little bump in the road every now and then. Once I really get things going, we'll have to see. But right now, I am pleased with my choice. It's easy for me to say that now because all I did was just sign up, a few hours ago and within 30 minutes, I was set up!

I wll let everyone know how things go for me.

Excited as a cat in a milk farm!

Mike
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:D