I'd be grateful if anyone could give me their view on this package from Hostpro. As far as I can see its pretty good, and I haven't really seen anything else which could better it for price against features.

I had a look at Burlee.com's unlimited package - its seems and excellent offer - unlimited bandwidth and disk space. However what nags is that they offer limited packages which are more expensive. Something fishy?

Here's the Hostpro plan for you to pick fault with.


Package Basics:
200 MB of disk space (more available through add-ons)
Your own domain name (www.yourdomain.com) & IP
Complimentary assistance with Domain Name Registration
Full Microsoft® FrontPage® 2000 support
20,000 MB of traffic/month ($0.05/MB thereafter)
Free 24/7 Technical Support
Daily Tape backup
Full time battery backup
30 day money-back guarantee
Free Banner Advertising with HostPro Clicks by SmartAge E-mail Capabilities:
20 POP3 e-mail accounts
30 Alias e-mail accounts
Unlimited Autoresponders
Default email address


FTP Capabilities:
Unlimited FTP Access (24hrs/day)
Controllable, Anonymous FTP Access


Control & Customization:
Web Control Panel for Account Administration
Daily Web Statistics - Analog


Technology
Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Extension Support
Excite® Search Engine
Full custom CGI execution capability
Access to our CGI script library
Perl, C, C++, SSI, PHP 4.0
Java Servlets


Database Support:
mySQL Database


Multimedia:
RealAudio® & RealVideo® capability (10 streams) - (more available through add-ons)
Shockwave, Flash, Quicktime, Vivo, Emblaze MIME types


E-commerce Tools:
100% guaranteed approval on Internet merchant account
Shared Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
ShopPlus cart ($500 value)
Support for Authorize.Net secure real-time credit card processing
Support for VeriSign automated online payment processing
Support for CyberCash™ live payment authorization & capture system





Monthly Fee: $39.95
Setup Fee: $40

Looks good.


BTW there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth.

Cheers

May Just take the plunge with this one.

Unless someone comes in with some dire warnings!!!!

beside the fact that extra bandwidth is charged... approx $50 per gb (!!!!!!!!) the host seems ok.

Yeah the $50 per GB over was noted.

However, the 20GB limit is pretty generous by any standards.
I could also upgrade to the package above which offers 'unlimited hits' - I know there is no such thing as unlimited, but its obviously going to allow more than the 20GB offered in the cheaper package. Which in itself is enough for a fairly high trafficed site.

You should look at some of the UK hosts: -

Fasthosts.co.uk - which claim to host the highest number of UK websites 'offer unlimited bandwidth on their site'.

Not one to be sold the old 'unlimited story' - I gave them a ring and ask them specifically what that ment.

Get this: The unlimited bandwidth was up to 2GB per month. Exceed that, and the remove you from their servers - No warnings or anything - just cut you dead.

Thank god I did some research!!

Anyone here from the UK looking at fasthosts be WARNED!!!

You are right... but be sure to NEVER go over ... 20,000 mb or 19,53 GB per month. because you will pay $51,2 per GB... that price is definately enourmous, considering the fact that it is usually between $2 and $10 :)

Unlimited hits by itself mean nothing about the transfer... It actually makes me wonder: do they limit hits right now? After a certain amount of hits your site closes down?? Unlimited hits just looks cool, but usually means nothing.

I am not sure, just make sure that they are worth it because their statement are not too clear and a bit misleading... for example the price per mb of overusage... someone who uses over 20 gb whont only use 5 mb over, but most likely a few GB. I know it is business, but being truthfull is always better in my opinion.

This is the statement from the site relating to 'no cost hits' which is the package up from the one given above:-

How many hits can a Virtual Server support?
The bandwidth provided to your virtual server is unlimited in that we do not charge you any type of fee based on the amount of network traffic generated by your site. You can rest assured that there are no hidden charges of any kind based on the amount of traffic to or from your virtual server. However, like all hardware, the Virtual Server system does have its limitations.

If a particular virtual server causes a physical machine to experience poor performance, slowness, or other problems because of an unusually high amount of traffic or activity, we may at our discretion contact the owner of the site and discuss other alternatives or take other necessary steps to ensure stability and reliability to all of our customers.



What do read into that????

It means the same thing it always means. In a shared hosting enviroment, you cannot utilize an excessive amount of server resources. That level is often vaguely defined.

it seems like a decent. and $50 per gig is excessive but seeing as they are giving you 20, it shouldn't matter.