As detailed in my previous posts I'm currently looking to host in the US for a site with a primarily UK audience. The main reason being the much higher bandwidth, and features offered by US hosters.

I've been kindly advised that there should be no significant difference in speed of page downloads if I do this.

However, I would like to check out the actual speed of the hosting service to the UK before I buy.

The UK has an extreamly useful site in http://www.webperf.net which check the average transfer rates of hundreds of UK host. This enables an easy comparision of service.

I was wondering if there was any way to check the speeds
to the UK for US hosts? Prior to taking the plunge.

Also of note is that Rapidsite.co.uk (Actually Verio) has asked to be removed from the list, as it was performing poorly in the connections to the UK, all though well to the US.

Also is the 'Average Transfer Rate' a good way of comparing download speeds?

Help Appreciated.

Chiliboy,

You can try this little nifty tool (http://www.webexpose.net/network/tools.asp), courtesy of WebExpose, which you can check to do pings and traceroutes to your own computer in the UK. Quite useful. The parent site of WebHostingTalk, Host Investigator (http://www.hostinvestigator.com) also has some useful tools - look for them in the left navigation bar down in the middle/lower half of the front page.

The "average transfer rate" is a reasonable measure of comparing download speeds, but it doesn't really tell the story unless you can repeat the tests for at least a week (optimally a month), as you might be testing in a good week, then the next week suddenly a router goes down or something breaks on the server, reducing their uptime. So it's an idea to follow up on if you have the time.

On most forums, newsgroups etc I have done research on
communitech has not gotten the best of reviews. Their customer service has been under fire for a while

Yet when I went to the hostinvestigator site, communitech is an approved host. I am wondering what the criteria for them getting on the list was.

later

David

At the moment I'm being swayed towards HostPro.com, But am still waiting to here some views on them.

I've also checked out futurequest.net anyone with views on them.

After reading this article http://www.forumhosts.com/hosts.htm I'm becoming more and more sceptical about the whole thing. From what I can see the whole thing is corrupt to the core!!

If you are looking at hostpro then I would suggest dedicatedhosting.com

they are part of hostpro, but specialize in dedicated servers

And dedicatedhosting.com's pricing are a little more competitive

I have been with them for about a month with no complaints yet ;)

later

David

I'm not really ready for the dedicated hosting yet. I was really looking at there 'web hosting' packages.

Ahhh

I have heard good things about
http://www.webexpose.net/

plus their pricing is pretty cool

later

David

Yeah, Just looked at their plans. Pretty good, but the bandwidth is limited. ie their top 'web hosting plan' only gives 7.5GB transfer per month.

I'm looking at a middle range Hostpro plan with 20GB.

They apparently Host over 85,000 sites. And crop up frequently in articles from trustworthy sources - surely someone must have an opinion?

Chiliboy,

I use Webexpose and can highly recommend them.

That said, have you tried out their tech support? If so, sign up then use their 30-day money back guarantee to try it out ;) Good luck.