OTG_Magus
03-28-2002, 06:07 PM
I got this letter today :
Dear Customer,
We would like to inform you of the latest changes taking place at
Donhost as well as important changes to your account.
EASTER BREAK
Our office will be open as normal Good Friday and Easter Monday.
TELEPHONE TECHNICAL SUPPORT
We are pleased to be able to extend the hours in which our customers
may seek telephone technical support. From Tuesday 2nd April 2002,
Telephone technical support will be available from 9am to 6pm Monday to
Saturday. 24 hour emergency telephone technical support does of course
continue to be available to dedicated and collocated customers on the usual
number.
DATA CENTRE IMPROVEMENTS
Over the last 6 months, we have been making many additions and
improvements to our Doncaster based data centre. A brand new, 120Kva Powerware
UPS and Scorpion Generator power provision system has been installed
ensuring constant, conditioned power to equipment located here.
Our premises are now protected by FM200 fire suppression systems, in
the event of a fire an inert gas is released into the atmosphere safely
extinguishing the fire whilst minimising disruption and damage to
equipment.
New climate control equipment has been installed, we now have multiple
redundant air conditioners, such that optimal environmental conditions
are maintained at all times.
Photographs are available on our site http://www.donhost.co.uk/company.
NETWORK EXPANSION
We have recently become a full member of the RIPE NCC
(http://www.ripe.net), doing so has enabled us to add additional
resilience to our network and makes us fully immune to any difficulties with
one of our upstream providers.
All servers are now serviced by at least two routers running the Cisco
Hot Standby Routing Protocol guaranteeing uninterrupted service in the
event of a router failure or malfunction and allowing us to perform
maintenance without disturbing our customers.
A new 10Mbit/s circuit from Telewest came online at our Doncaster data
centre last week, massively increasing capacity and adding additional
resilience to the Doncaster facility.
The forthcoming quarter will see the installation of two 45Mbit/s
circuits from the Doncaster facility to London Telehouse and Manchester
Telecity from two new telecos. Once completed, our own UNIX servers
currently located in Telehouse will be moved to our own data centre, making a
massive array of new features and improvements to our industry leading
technology possible.
DEALING WITH ABUSE
As many of you will know, abuse on our reseller servers is a major
issue for us and a recent customer survey has made us aware that our
current methods of dealing with it are not ideal and are upsetting many of
our resellers. We are making many changes to solve what we consider to be
the only weakness currently in the reseller solution.
The amendment to the specification of the reseller plan detailed below,
is partly intended to make the reseller solution less attractive to the
minority of users who want to use our service for unacceptable
purposes, reducing the burden of dealing with abuse for us and enabling us to
better focus our resources and offer improved customer service to the
majority of responsible resellers on the odd occasion that one of their
clients breaches the AUP.
We are currently phasing in a new system for notifying our resellers of
any problems with their account, ensuring that resellers always have a
detailed report of any problem including what action has been taken by
Donhost as a result of it as well as making it easier for our support
staff to locate information regarding a problem should the reseller
contact us regarding it at a later date.
Once we have completed the move of our Reseller UNIX servers to our
Doncaster facility as detailed below, we will be able to launch two new
services. Firstly, resellers will have access to the systems and reports
we currently use to identify problem users on our servers and thus will
be able to deal with issues themselves without involving us.
Secondly, a new trust rating service will be introduced. This system
will integrate with the communication and reporting systems discussed
above and will accurately track the response of resellers to problems with
their users. The rating of those resellers who deal with problems
promptly and effectively will gain a high trust rating and will have the
opportunity to police their accounts themselves before Donhost take any
action, whilst those resellers who do not cooperate and help us with
their problem users and who are currently degrading the level of service
offered to our responsible resellers will gain a low trust rating and
problems with their users will be dealt with more severely.
We hope that this will prove to be a more acceptable solution for our
network of valued resellers.
PRICE CHANGE
From 1st May 2002, the pricing for the UNIX Reseller Plan will be as
follows (prices exclusive of VAT).
Monthly £39.99
Quarterly £109.99
Annually £399.99
This price change is the first for 12 months and is being made for the
following reasons. Coupled with the specification change below and our
recent massive investments in our network infrastructure, it will make
it commercially viable for us to host the Reseller UNIX servers from
our own Doncaster facility. This will allow us to have better backup
systems, enable us to bring new servers online easier and quicker as well
as making solving and dealing with system problems more efficient. Most
importantly, this move will remove the constraints of long haul
communications between our Windows 2000 servers in Doncaster and our UNIX
servers in London currently preventing the product improvements which our
customers have requested.
Whilst regrettable, this price change is unavoidable, UNIX Reseller
accounts which fall due for renewal after 1st May 2002 will automatically
be billed at the new rate.
RESELLER UNIX/PRO SPECIFICATION
From 1st May 2002, the monthly data transfer quota for the UNIX
Reseller plan and the UNIX component of the Reseller Pro plan will be 20,000
megabytes per month. This change is being made for a multitude of
reasons:
Since less than 1% of our resellers currently exceed the current quota,
this change will affect very few of our customers, and as such we feel
that the benefits of being able to move the Reseller UNIX severs to our
Doncaster data centre, far outweigh the disadvantages.
We hope that this change will make our products less attractive to
those who wish to use them for the distribution of illegal content and as a
consequence reduce the burden of dealing with abuse on our network thus
improving the level of service and satisfaction for the vast majority
of responsible resellers.
Increasing the network capacity at our Doncaster facility in order to
service the Reseller UNIX servers will enable us to better exploit
economies of scale and in the medium term offer much lower priced data
transfer on our range of dedicated products opening a more flexible upgrade
path for our resellers to advance their operations.
We thank you for your continued support and business.
Kind Regards,
All At Donhost
Anyways, Im closing my account with them. Not because of the changes, I just found some better deals. The idea of paying more money for less bandwidth doesn't sound cool to me though....
Dear Customer,
We would like to inform you of the latest changes taking place at
Donhost as well as important changes to your account.
EASTER BREAK
Our office will be open as normal Good Friday and Easter Monday.
TELEPHONE TECHNICAL SUPPORT
We are pleased to be able to extend the hours in which our customers
may seek telephone technical support. From Tuesday 2nd April 2002,
Telephone technical support will be available from 9am to 6pm Monday to
Saturday. 24 hour emergency telephone technical support does of course
continue to be available to dedicated and collocated customers on the usual
number.
DATA CENTRE IMPROVEMENTS
Over the last 6 months, we have been making many additions and
improvements to our Doncaster based data centre. A brand new, 120Kva Powerware
UPS and Scorpion Generator power provision system has been installed
ensuring constant, conditioned power to equipment located here.
Our premises are now protected by FM200 fire suppression systems, in
the event of a fire an inert gas is released into the atmosphere safely
extinguishing the fire whilst minimising disruption and damage to
equipment.
New climate control equipment has been installed, we now have multiple
redundant air conditioners, such that optimal environmental conditions
are maintained at all times.
Photographs are available on our site http://www.donhost.co.uk/company.
NETWORK EXPANSION
We have recently become a full member of the RIPE NCC
(http://www.ripe.net), doing so has enabled us to add additional
resilience to our network and makes us fully immune to any difficulties with
one of our upstream providers.
All servers are now serviced by at least two routers running the Cisco
Hot Standby Routing Protocol guaranteeing uninterrupted service in the
event of a router failure or malfunction and allowing us to perform
maintenance without disturbing our customers.
A new 10Mbit/s circuit from Telewest came online at our Doncaster data
centre last week, massively increasing capacity and adding additional
resilience to the Doncaster facility.
The forthcoming quarter will see the installation of two 45Mbit/s
circuits from the Doncaster facility to London Telehouse and Manchester
Telecity from two new telecos. Once completed, our own UNIX servers
currently located in Telehouse will be moved to our own data centre, making a
massive array of new features and improvements to our industry leading
technology possible.
DEALING WITH ABUSE
As many of you will know, abuse on our reseller servers is a major
issue for us and a recent customer survey has made us aware that our
current methods of dealing with it are not ideal and are upsetting many of
our resellers. We are making many changes to solve what we consider to be
the only weakness currently in the reseller solution.
The amendment to the specification of the reseller plan detailed below,
is partly intended to make the reseller solution less attractive to the
minority of users who want to use our service for unacceptable
purposes, reducing the burden of dealing with abuse for us and enabling us to
better focus our resources and offer improved customer service to the
majority of responsible resellers on the odd occasion that one of their
clients breaches the AUP.
We are currently phasing in a new system for notifying our resellers of
any problems with their account, ensuring that resellers always have a
detailed report of any problem including what action has been taken by
Donhost as a result of it as well as making it easier for our support
staff to locate information regarding a problem should the reseller
contact us regarding it at a later date.
Once we have completed the move of our Reseller UNIX servers to our
Doncaster facility as detailed below, we will be able to launch two new
services. Firstly, resellers will have access to the systems and reports
we currently use to identify problem users on our servers and thus will
be able to deal with issues themselves without involving us.
Secondly, a new trust rating service will be introduced. This system
will integrate with the communication and reporting systems discussed
above and will accurately track the response of resellers to problems with
their users. The rating of those resellers who deal with problems
promptly and effectively will gain a high trust rating and will have the
opportunity to police their accounts themselves before Donhost take any
action, whilst those resellers who do not cooperate and help us with
their problem users and who are currently degrading the level of service
offered to our responsible resellers will gain a low trust rating and
problems with their users will be dealt with more severely.
We hope that this will prove to be a more acceptable solution for our
network of valued resellers.
PRICE CHANGE
From 1st May 2002, the pricing for the UNIX Reseller Plan will be as
follows (prices exclusive of VAT).
Monthly £39.99
Quarterly £109.99
Annually £399.99
This price change is the first for 12 months and is being made for the
following reasons. Coupled with the specification change below and our
recent massive investments in our network infrastructure, it will make
it commercially viable for us to host the Reseller UNIX servers from
our own Doncaster facility. This will allow us to have better backup
systems, enable us to bring new servers online easier and quicker as well
as making solving and dealing with system problems more efficient. Most
importantly, this move will remove the constraints of long haul
communications between our Windows 2000 servers in Doncaster and our UNIX
servers in London currently preventing the product improvements which our
customers have requested.
Whilst regrettable, this price change is unavoidable, UNIX Reseller
accounts which fall due for renewal after 1st May 2002 will automatically
be billed at the new rate.
RESELLER UNIX/PRO SPECIFICATION
From 1st May 2002, the monthly data transfer quota for the UNIX
Reseller plan and the UNIX component of the Reseller Pro plan will be 20,000
megabytes per month. This change is being made for a multitude of
reasons:
Since less than 1% of our resellers currently exceed the current quota,
this change will affect very few of our customers, and as such we feel
that the benefits of being able to move the Reseller UNIX severs to our
Doncaster data centre, far outweigh the disadvantages.
We hope that this change will make our products less attractive to
those who wish to use them for the distribution of illegal content and as a
consequence reduce the burden of dealing with abuse on our network thus
improving the level of service and satisfaction for the vast majority
of responsible resellers.
Increasing the network capacity at our Doncaster facility in order to
service the Reseller UNIX servers will enable us to better exploit
economies of scale and in the medium term offer much lower priced data
transfer on our range of dedicated products opening a more flexible upgrade
path for our resellers to advance their operations.
We thank you for your continued support and business.
Kind Regards,
All At Donhost
Anyways, Im closing my account with them. Not because of the changes, I just found some better deals. The idea of paying more money for less bandwidth doesn't sound cool to me though....