Hi everyone.

I'm looking for a new web host (my contract with Communitech.net expires in November), and I'm very weary. I've heard so many horror stories. I've been with Communitech since I first started my website two years ago, and I haven't had any real complaints - it's just that they're too expensive to renew with, since it'd be about US$500, which is a cool grand for two years with the Australian dollar as ****** as it is now. I just can't do it!

So far I'm thinking of going with powweb.com, they sound good. I like that all the information/policies are easily accessible, not hidden... They seem clear and straight-forward about everything. I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with them?

Also, intensehost.com has been recommended to me too, but the person has been with them for less than a month, and powweb offers more bandwidth and whatnot for less money. I'm very worried about bandwidth cause I signed with Communitech while they still offered "unlimited" bandwidth, so I've never had to worry about it. I have no idea how much of it I use!

In short, what I need is at least 100 mbs of webspace, cgi/php (chilisoft asp would be nice, but I can cope without it!), and I'm guestimating that with approx. 500+ unique hits a day to my domain I'd need say, 3 - 5 gb a month? My site is graphically intense. I may also be running a vBulletin Board on there again soon, but I'm not sure. So any recommendations would be appreciated!

Let me know what experiences you've had with powweb.com if any!

www.powweb.com charges $30 for mysql... I think that's shoddy. I mean, using php/mysql is better for the cpu load than using all cgi-based scripts, no? Plus I've searched the forums and their configuration sounds like a nightmare. But I'm passing them up cause, ****, I pay vbulletin for a license, I'm not paying them $30 to run it, give me a break!

I wonder, are there any good Australian based web-hosts, with plans in Australian dollars? I'm willing to go up to US$20/AU$40 a month for a quality virtual server account. I can't go higher than that though.

(ps: www.tera-byte.com is looking good at this point...)

I've been looking at a few hosts today, including Powweb.com. I've been with Tera-Byte.com since last December, but yesterday, without any warning, they suspended my account. Turns out the payment was declined on my credit card. After verification, the payment was NOT declined: they just made an error in the number when trying to charge it. So my account was suspended for over 8 hours and they finally reactivated it.

Well, it doesn't end there. Somehow they must have broken something because since the reactivation, I have not been able to upload any changes to my site - the upload works, but the changes don't show up (and it's not a browser cache problem or whatever on my side - I've made all checks about 5 times.) Anyway, after many requests to their tech support, all they've come up with so far is that it's fine on their side (even though I pointed out that pages they say should show up, don't.) I guess because it's not a business site I'm low priority or something. Well, I easily spend 30-40 hours a week on my site so I like to be able to update it - daily.

So anyway, although the experience have been ok before yesterday, two things bother me:

1) They suspended my account immediately, without double checking their entry, without contacting me to verify. No warning at all.

2) They've decided there's no problem with my account, even though I'm unable to update it. So I pretty much have a dormant website at this time.

I'm not bashing Tera-Byte here because they've been pretty reliable, but this latest experience is not good.

So I'm looking for alternatives. Powweb is indeed attractive but I can't help but wonder if it's too good to be true. Others I've been looking at:

Apollo
Hostway
Telaweb

I've looked at many others but either the limited space or price (or both) were ridiculous.

Host shopping is not fun. It always looks good on the web hosting plans description but after that... Who knows who we're in business with! And the delay in DNS update when updating the domain name is annoying as well.

End of rant :)

Well your experience with them is something worth thinking about! Definitely!

Right now I'm tossing up between www.aussiehosts.com, www.tera-byte.com and www.sexy-hosting.com, but I have until mid december to consider my options.

Well, just take that with a grain of salt. It's my first bad experience in almost 10 months. There's been some minor hiccups here and there but nothing out of the ordinary. It's the first time I have a major problem and unfortunately, I seem to be stuck. I'd rather not switch but they're not giving me much choice, are they? There's a contest ending tomorrow on my web site and I can't even update it to take down the entry form!

Still shopping around. I'm glad I found this forum tonight, lots of info. Ventures Online seems to be a good candidate.