hi
I am currently hosted with cloud nine and for the past todays our site has been down, I tried there premium tech support line and got a 'number not recognised message' and phoned the number on the network solutions whos info and got an invalid number. Also the cloud nine is down.

Have they gone out of business??
This is really frustrating as we are a recruitment agency and we heavily rely on emails to run smoothly??

Is anyone else a cloud nine client??

Cheers

2 days down and no reply? Invalid phone#? I would already have moved to a new host.

wow 2 days you need to get your site back up try a new host -----

Its been up and down for the past two days, We occasionaly managed to get email then it would go down again :(
I have tried to change hosts but cloud nine for some reason didn't release the domain and are now trying to charge £50 to do so!!

Are you talking about Cloud9.net based in Westchester County, NY?

I'm from Westchester and for the 4 years I've been in the web hosting business, I would never have gone with a hosting company based in the county.

They are all low-tier two-bit ISPs that do dial up access and have a couple of servers in a storage room somewhere, charge prices way beyond their worth, have little connectivity redundancies, and have technical in the way of experience technical support.

I host my own and all my client accounts at data centers outside the county. There is no one in this county I would do business with, except maybe MCI (has a data center in Elmsford), Interliant (in Harrison, NY) or IBM. And these are all too expensive for our (yours and mine) needs.

Almost any of the web hosts here can provide you better hosting at better facilities and better prices than Cloud9. And that goes for Cyburban, WestNet and Savvy, too. (other Westchester ISPs)

Feel free to email me if you need any help.

Sean

Wow. I used to use cloud9 (the one in Westchester) for dialup. I almost did some support work for WestNet in 1996. At the time WestNet was just a bunch of hardware in some guy's house in Rye. Not sure if that is still the case. I have never seen cloud9's setup, but I always got the impression that they were a bit bigger (though still small).

Either way I agree with Sean. You can get more for less money elsewhere.

-joe

well this is a sorry thread now , are we putting down other hosting companies because of there location , they may be a virtual isp and have there server in a datacenter --we all dont know ......so we should not judge them , not saying that i use them but dont put any other comapnies down that i never work with :stickout

airtime is right. I should not be blasting local web hosts around here. It's not professional and I apologize to everybody here.

I guess the matter struck a chord with me because many of my local web design clients are always so surprised when I tell them I do my web hosting out of nac.net in New Jersey.

My impression has been and still remains that these local ISPs, which started as dial-up internet access providers, just added a few web servers to their headquarters and began selling web hosting to their dial-up and T1 customers.

As such, you'll be hard pressed to find any information about redundant connectivity, who they are using to connect to the internet backbones, power backups, security or anything else at their data centers. In addition, they refuse to tell you what kind of hardware they're putting your hosting account on.

I do not think they outsource their hosting services or have dedicated systems in other data centers, otherwise they would put more info on their sites about the premier services and partners they do use.

One of my design clients is hosted locally and they put her on a Cobalt Raq2 and charge her $25 a month (last I looked) for the privilege! One DSL salesman at another local ISP I did not mention told me they host their sites on "anything they can find lying around".

It seems local web designers that also provide hosting services to their clients are much more concerned about these issues and address them by going to companies that use good hosting facilities.

So to the local ISPs I slammed, I apologize. It was unfair to lump them altogether into one bad group.

But I think they should address the issues I raised and then loudly proclaim the *professional* hosting facilities and services they offer.

Right now, none of them do, so my opinion still remains that everyone is better off going to hosting company using a top tier NOC. And that's exactly what I do.

Sean

Originally posted by airtime166
well this is a sorry thread now , are we putting down other hosting companies because of there location , they may be a virtual isp and have there server in a datacenter

These are not virtual ISPs. The two companies I mentioned both have their own facilities. It's not about where they are located, but rather about what they offer and what they charge. Cloud9 charges $50/month for web hosting. The main advantage that they have over some other companies is phone support, but I personally do not think that their web hosting service is worth the money.
I will say that they I was a happy dialup subscriber when I used cloud9 and I would still recommend them for dialup service.

-joe

PS I do not think that we are talking about the same cloud9 as the original poster. www.cloud9.net is working fine.
www.cloud-nine.com which is the site of a different provider is not up at the moment.

Joe,

I think you are right about talking about two different companies. My mistake there for taking the thread in a wrong direction.
:rolleyes:

Sean

hi sorry the company is cloud nine communications Ltd based in the UK, guess I should have said that in my first place to avoid confusion :D

Cheers

isn't cloud 9 a drug?

Down for two days....no phone number works....want to charge you to release the domain??? Get out and do it fast. Call the registrar (they aren't a registrar are they? most likely a re-seller) and tell them what is up.

If you paid for the domain name and it hasn't expired, they have to give it to you. It's just the law. Call the registrar and tell them the problem, they will most likely understand.

Trying to charge someone to leave....that's funny!! :)

These links explain what happened to cloud-nine, the UK-based ISP:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/22/1335215&mode=thread

I was reading about them on The Register only a few hours ago.. A pretty sad way for a business to go under I have to say.

Greg Moore

Originally posted by Dylan
isn't cloud 9 a drug?

you know, I was reading this post and thinkign the same exact thing ... ;)

Here is the link from ispreview.co.uk.
The company was pushed out of business by crackers. Sad story.
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/ispnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1011696274,91619,

Unfortuantly they didnt suffer a DoS attack at all.
Its bollox. They ran out of money and used it as a cover.

ISPReview.co.uk has all the details on there - shoddy company, no wonder the UK ISP industry is in such a state :rolleyes:

Re: Trying to charge someone for trying to leave...

Actually this practice is quite common among the smaller slip-shod "local" ISPs that have been previously mentioned in this thread. I do not live near NY so am not accustomed with any individual companies there, but I can say that it is a similar case nationwide. Even here in the midwest.

Yes, there are actually "ISPs" that run a hosting business at the long far end of a T1 on four overloaded Win2K or Win98 boxes in the storage closet. We have that in our area too. There are no environmental controls, the "fire supression" is a bunch of hand-held extinguishers, and anybody can walk into the closet (which is not kept secured) and fiddle with the servers -- there is literally that easy of access. And did I mention, there is a $149 service charge for moving your site off their servers before the annual contract is complete, and domains are not "released" before the $300 annual hosting fees AND the $149 service charge are paid in full. And there is no refund on the annual hosting fees either. :nuts: I find this preposterous, but some people think it's an O.K. way to do business I guess.

It is not appropriate to mention names as I believe that clients who realize the lack of security or services will then wise up and move to someone more reputable. :) This goes for all ISPs in this "category" with similar set-ups and services. When investigating something as critical as an ISP I always recommend running all the basic background checks like:

(1) Verifying the business name & address are the same in the WHOIS as they are with listings like whitepages.com etc.

(2) Does the verified address sound as if it might be located in a strip mall? If so... hehe... A legit big-league ISP usually has a data center, not a rented strip mall unit. Might want to consider if this is a reflection of their state-of-affairs for cash-flow and business maturity?

(3) Might want to try and confirm what sort of facility the address does match up to. Do a Google search and see if any mall listings come up for the street number. ;)

(4) What part of town are they located in? http://www.mapquest.com ... plot out the address.

(5) Is it a legitimate address? http://www.usps.gov and use the Zip Code finder. It'll tell ya if it even exists.

(6) Geographics... to get a better idea of what their area is like, go to whitepages.com and enter their info. See if they come up; if they do, click on the links to find surrounding businesses, etc. and see what comes up. You don't have to do this on whitepage, it can be done at your other favorite people/business-finder site.

(7) Always always always run a business through the BBB listings. http://www.bbb.org **ALWAYS!** :D



Make sure, however, that your traces on the ISP domains match their contact information. Remember that many ISPs lease or rent their equipment in a bigger data center with a bigger company. I believe this is a benefit to all clients because not only do you have the benefit of the service provider's support and expertise, but they also have an upline to consult for high-level technical issues. They're also in a larger data center on large pipes and with a company's established track record, rather than in that unfortunate place of attempting to run four overloaded boxes in a storage closet at the long end of a T1. An end-consumer gains a lot of benefits by working with a web host who leases, and the prices are generally more affordable than the big boys (like Dialtone or IBM or other REALLY Big Boys).

I went through these steps when searching for a dial-up provider. I also recommend doing extensive searches here at WHT when looking for a web host. A person can find a lot of good, useful information and can possibly be saved a lot of heartache.

:D Karin

Originally posted by akashik
I was reading about them on The Register only a few hours ago.. A pretty sad way for a business to go under I have to say.

Greg Moore

Where you located at: The Register paper? That's Orange County (Los Angeles Region) right. Or you talking about web and not "news paper?"

Off topic but...