okay, so i've narrowed my choices to 3...

-hostpack
-dot5hosting
-exstream

Which one would you suggest to use? Any personal experiences? Please state the reasons why or why not to go with a certain host


Thanks!

dot5hosting

Hostpacket and Dot5 are fairly new companies, but you can get some reviews if you use http://webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=

http://webhostingtalk.com/misc.php?s=&action=forum-rules

Ok, how about we start this thread again, without all the arguing and bickering, everyone read the rules as Jedito has put above before posting.

Lets try this thread a second time.

I'm hosted with Hostpacket and I have to say this is the best host i've had as of yet. They definitely offer the most features for the cheapest prices I've seen, and the support has always been quick. People are quick to say they had a little downtime which is obviously a factor in picking a host, but I have yet to be with a host that didn't have downtime and selecting a host should have more factors involved in it then simply uptime.

Comparing the details of the hosting plans of these 3 sites, hostpacket is the only one that meets the needs for my site and even if you run a small site you should always want to have the option to expand.

Just look at the plans

Hostpacket Plans (http://www.hostpacket.net)

xstreamhosting plans (http://www.xstreamhosting.com/hosting.html)

Dot5hosting Plans (http://www.dot5hosting.com/hosting.html)

I'm disappointed with HostPacket. Even if they offer cheap prices, included in that price are some guarantees which they have failed to live up to!

I'm not asking for 100% uptime in a host (though they do claim to offer 99.9% uptime :rolleyes: ) but AT LEAST INFORM THE CLIENT OF WHY THEIR SITE WILL/WAS DOWN!!

It seems like they are not only fairly new to the hosting business, but new to business operations itself.

See, I am a Site5 customer, and for anyone that is with them I'm sure you'll agree with me. Their support is great, but not only that, they are truly professionals! I receive invoices, scheduled network maintainces, and downtime notices each and every time! Why must I log onto webhostingtalk.com to find out why my site is down!!??

I don't want to sound to harsh, but I think they've still got alot to learn, support with them was pretty good though. Only recently, they've asked that we should send support e-mails to both Kevin and Adam. Adam apparently has "missed" alot of e-mails.

Another strange thing about them is that they are looking for support staff with "little or no experience.." :eek: Uhhh... ok.

This is much better:) Nice and peacful!

It's shame for someone like you, it's no meaning to post we're down as soon as you find it :disagree: while we're working on it and solve it in 10 minutes

my full time tech is RHCE certificated, it's not fun that you who only disagree our service

I assume you've never been our client, frauder will not stand, shame on you :disagree: let's be gentleman

Originally posted by Piano
I'm disappointed with HostPacket. Even if they offer cheap prices, included in that price are some guarantees which they have failed to live up to!

I'm not asking for 100% uptime in a host (though they do claim to offer 99.9% uptime :rolleyes: ) but AT LEAST INFORM THE CLIENT OF WHY THEIR SITE WILL/WAS DOWN!!

It seems like they are not only fairly new to the hosting business, but new to business operations itself.

See, I am a Site5 customer, and for anyone that is with them I'm sure you'll agree with me. Their support is great, but not only that, they are truly professionals! I receive invoices, scheduled network maintainces, and downtime notices each and every time! Why must I log onto webhostingtalk.com to find out why my site is down!!??

I don't want to sound to harsh, but I think they've still got alot to learn, support with them was pretty good though. Only recently, they've asked that we should send support e-mails to both Kevin and Adam. Adam apparently has "missed" alot of e-mails.

Another strange thing about them is that they are looking for support staff with "little or no experience.." :eek: Uhhh... ok.

Originally posted by dk2002
It's shame for someone like you, it's no meaning to post we're down as soon as you find it :disagree: while we're working on it and solve it in 10 minutes

my full time tech is RHCE certificated, it's not fun that you who only disagree our service

I assume you've never been our client, frauder will not stand, shame on you :disagree:



How utterly un-professional. Sure... any negative remarks/comments made towards your company are posted by what you call "frauders..." :rolleyes:

Your network was DOWN for MORE than 10 MINUTES. Just check out your own forum, it's a mess, full of complaints.

EVERY NEGATIVE COMMENT POSTED HERE BY ANY USER YOU CLAIM TO HAVE NEVER HOSTED.

Face it. People will be unsatisfied with your service.

If THERE WAS only 10 minutes of downtime, you wouldn't have posted in another thread that you went BELOW your uptime guarantee! :angry:

my full time tech is RHCE certificated, it's not fun that you who only disagree our service

Previously posted by you:
After checking with my new tech, Apache failed at 11:00pm, then he rebooted server# 1, but at 12:30am Bind failed and he can't solve it, until at 5:30am J. found the problem (on vacation) and fixed the Bind conf file...

The most important is I made a big mistakes to set the monitor to supervise on servers' IP only, if I set it to domain or ports, I would be alarmed once Bind is down...

And, what about your "suppot staff."

http://www.hostpacket.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=76

please send again to support@hostpacket.net and a copy to me at marketing@hostpacket.net if you don't receive a reply, I apologize if it made any troubles to you... adam may missed your email :(

I see that you're hiring new ones as well:
Fresh graduates with little or no experience are welcome to apply. :rolleyes:

I AM A CLIENT OF YOURS. I WOULD AT LEAST EXPECT SOME KIND OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AS TO WHY THERE WAS EVER DOWNTIME/POTENTIAL DOWNTIME!

I'm just curious what's the meaning for you to start the thread:

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69382

"It seems like their site is down, as well as all sites hosted by them."

that was cause by apache failed and clients on main server won't be affected, and you post it as soon as we've apache problem in server# 2

you can show you were a customer of ours if you can tell me your order number and domain name

Also previously posted by you:
btvillarin, I believe you're the real attacker of our company, two threads start by you, and just say "hostpacket down", "hostpacket down 2", and now want to start hostpacket down 3??

It's enough, and it's the last warning, I and my techs are trying to do the best Uh-huh... :rolleyes:

8:58am

server# 1 has down for 2 hours

rebooting now Sorry, but 2 hours isn't 15 minutes.

what a bad morning...

looks like someone made server# 1 crashed at very early this morning Associated with this "crash" was downtime, yet again![/quote]

server rebooted but the mai IP still not reachable, finding out why... sorry for inconvenience all Still not up 10 minutes later...

9:18am

found the reason....the tech say server# 1 is still scanning its harddisk after reboot... 2 hours later.

9:32am

The tech say server# 1 need a manual fsck... so it's harddisk problem after server crash, they said it takes 5 minutes to maximum 30 mintues... More and more downtime!

The tech is following up now, it's not dns issue Well, that was a contradiction to your previous remarks. Still didn't know what was the issue? :rolleyes:

server# 1 down for 3 hours Again, not 15 minutes.

Originally posted by dk2002
I'm just curious what's the meaning for you to start the thread:

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69382

"It seems like their site is down, as well as all sites hosted by them."

that was cause by apache failed and clients on main server won't be affected, and you post it as soon as we've apache problem in server# 2

you can show you were a customer of ours if you can tell me your order number and domain name If clients on your "main server" were not affected, then why was your site and clients site down! Just read the posts below, it's not like I was the only one that couldn't access it.

ALSO, TELL ME WHY YOU CAN'T AT LEAST I-N-F-O-R-M YOUR CLIENTS ABOUT DOWNTIME THROUGH E-MAIL, WE'D LIKE TO KNOW!

Hi,

I've done a search base on your username, you've been with Site5 and satisfied with their service :)

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52296

And looks like you've been planning for reselling

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61900

And you've found a provider and looking for client billing software, that's needed by reseller, but I can tell we did not have a new reseller from 15th to 21st July :(

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62038

And you're looking for new reseller account as well

http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68913

If you can tell me your order number and domain name to show you've been a customer of us, I would be appreciated, if not, let's be gentleman, there's good guys and bad guys, but don't be so aggressive

We've been rebuilding the clients database and I don't have time to add 400+ clients to the mailing list, but I've around 250 clients data on the original database after I empty it by accident 2 months ago, we can send the newsletter but did not do it yet, trying to do the best anyway :)

P.S. apologize for any personal attack

What are you trying to say? I can't have a reseller account at one place, and a hosting account at another?

As far as I know, my credit card can be used multiple times until it reaches the limit. :rolleyes:

Anyways, maybe you should have some of your other staff work on getting everyone on the mailing list. If we know the problem, then we wouldn't have to post here asking everyone else for their input.

And um... who's handling support@hostpacket.net ?

:rolleyes:

On top of that, our experienced help-desk team works twenty four hours a day for seven days a week to provide you with expert technical and business support, ensuring you undisrupted reliability and peace-of-mind.

Our customers worldwide have the guaranteed assurance that we are committed to providing service of the highest quality.


Just a comment from an impartial observer - With the statement as this above , it would be a good idea to START seriously listening to those customers & stop calling them "fraudsters" .

I have left 2 previous hosts because they themselves had no idea that everything was down . And as for relating the reasons to their customers - NO CHANCE . It's not a good way to go .

For the many reasons in this thread and some others I'm about to leave hostpacket for another host.

I joined hostpacket in Mid June and for the first month it was great, light server loads and a stable server, since then it has all been downhil..

I'm leaving for the following reasons:
1 - Constantly down server - 10 mins here, 30 mins there.
2 - Server admin constantly lying about downtime.
3 - Personal attacks on people with legitimate claims.

I honestly wish it was different, hostpacket had a good deal (price / features) and originally a stable good server.

One to avoid.

Matt

Ladies, Ladies... Lets keep this thread on topic :D

Handle this off the forum. you've both said your piece. (Piano and dk)

He cannot show his order number and domain name so I assume he's not a customer of ours, you know what he's trying to do

if he has been one of our clients, at least our quality customer support can give him some good impression, not completely disagree about our service, not only the downtime, also our company, techs quality and everything

Mr.btvillarin has been posted 3 major threads all about our downtime, it's doubtful, but he did the apologize personally and stated no hates to our company

Originally posted by dk2002
He cannot show his order number and domain name so I assume he's not a customer of ours, you know what he's trying to do

if he has been one of our clients, at least our quality customer support can give him some good impression, not completely disagree about our service, not only the downtime, also our company, techs quality and everything

Mr.btvillarin has been posted 3 major threads all about our downtime, it's doubtful, but he did the apologize personally and stated no hates to our company Yes, yes, yes... assume, do assume. :rolleyes:

I just hope you aren't managing your servers based upon asumptions.

And... WHAT am I trying to do? Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you;

I'm secretly an employee of see eye host, out to destroy your business. :rolleyes:

I'm NOT the only one that has negative opinions on your company. You feel that I should "apologize?" Is that what you're suggesting.

Business is BUSINESS. Learn how to handle yours.

you know what he's trying to dodk2, I think we all know what YOU are trying to do.

Faults in your business practices can not always be covered up and swept under the rug.

if he has been one of our clients, at least our quality customer support can give him some good impression, not completely disagree about our service, not only the downtime, also our company, techs quality and everything

Check out your forums, sir. Other customers don't seem to appreciate and value your "quality customer support."

you don't understand matt... not you first mentioned our uptime in this thread:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=489690

we would not have so much downtime problems, especially the continuous DOS attack all over the last week, target was server# 1 and attack must at mid-night, or around 6pm, when I was sleeping or driving back home, you don't know how's it's annoying that the cell phone/alarm wake me up while I'm sleeping and to call J. to see what's wrong with the server at mid-night

other was bind/apache failed issue, we've been setting up ns4 and ns5 as backup dns, also firewall, all other things we can do

Starting to get heated ... again?

I'm secretly an employee of see eye host, out to destroy your business.

is that true? if so, it's terribly rude.

i know hostpacket has had some problems, but i have faith that these issues will disappear. while trying to troubleshoot my own problem (as i was waiting for a reply from support) i did find ns4 and ns5.. hopefull this will rid us of these DNS issues.

I do agree, however that there should be some way of letting customers know what's going on. An offsite status page perhaps? Take a look at westhost's status page: http://netstatus.westhost.com/. They are quick to state, at the very top of the page:

2002-08-16 15:12:37 - There is a problem with WestHost Webmail right now. We are working on this and it should be fixed very soon. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

I don't see why i should visit WHT every time to see what is going on with hostpacket.

I don't see why i should visit WHT every time to see what is going on with hostpacket. [/B]

Hear hear!

My site won't come up right now (3:25 CST) but their site will, but no sign of what's going on over there, not even in their forums.

I believe that HostPacket will get it together soon. I'm being optimistic here and hoping so. But it would be really, really nice if they would alert us ahead of time for their maintence procedures. And maybe even schedule them when most of America is asleep. I know that there are peole in Aus that use the net too, but if most of their customers are in the US or Canada, then wouldn't it seem logical to do your "repairs" when most people are offline?

StateDOG

You know what else?

They don't seem to be able to handle the pressure. They've been taddling around with posts in their forums:

http://www.hostpacket.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=1&sid=331e047f6777e2fe72c934f0bb7e40eb

I would also echo the concerns about HostPacket. They are dishonest and/or incompetent. The downtime is atrocious,and they seem to have a new excuse all of the time.

The reality is they overload servers and don't know how to get out of the problem. When I signed up, I was assured that they limit the number of accounts on each server...untrue.

When I signed up, I saw 99% uptime...not even close.

When I signed up, they promised responsive customer service...what a joke! Check their forums right now and you will see what kind of service they provide.

I would choose either of the options you mentioned...in fact, I think I will. :mad:

Originally posted by ChickenFart
I do agree, however that there should be some way of letting customers know what's going on. An offsite status page perhaps? Take a look at westhost's status page: http://netstatus.westhost.com/. They are quick to state, at the very top of the page:
That page took a while to load..:eek: but boy, they've got some servers there. :D

Piano, Pogie, frankly I don't see complaints about Hostpacket from you two guys. I see outright attacks against Hostpacket's credibility , company, integrity, etc.

If you are a customer and have a legit complaint state the complaint and move on. But multiple post's that appear so aggressive with sever attack posturing make me suspicious of your credibility.

I really don’t want to defend Hostpack since I can’t access my site for the last 7 hours. But up until today
service has been better than my previous host. I don’t know what plans you have but if it’s the entry level
plan, you’re not paying much, and it’s easy to move to another host. So rather than sounding like a dripping facet, just move to a new host, and tell us how great your new host is.

As for down time, if your running a business, then I can understand your frustration, but again the solution
is the same. MOVE your business somewhere else if your not happy.

I've got to disagree with you on a couple of points.

The most important is that the whole point of this site is for people to be able to independently evaluate web hosts. All of the entry level people claim essentially the same thing--the problem is that Hostpacket doesn't come close to meeting those claims.

I chose Hostpacket based, in large part, on the recommendations here. I think that people should know what they are getting into. I have used many other services that provided better uptime and more features and would be happy to recommend those to some people.

You're right. I'm not paying a lot. That's not the point. The point is that Hostpacket misrepresented themselves and they have hurt my credibility and the credibility of my business.

No one has been able to access their sites for over 16 hours. How many posts has Hostpacket made in their forums? How many e-mails have they sent?

Those questions have the same answer as "How many customers should sign up with hostpacket?"

None.

>>>>>Not a member of hostpacket<<<<<


As said above, I'm not a member of Hostpacket, or any of the other two servers. But looking at the controversy surrounding Hostpacket... you might want to either wait until their servers settle down, or chose one of the others.

I think the main problem with Hostpacket is downtime. But then again, they seem to have a good deal. So if you have a high trafficed site, choose someone else. If you have a personal page, or just something for fun, look into Hostpacket.

Guys & Guls, i assume that HostPacket are trying their best to settle down the things....I am sure they will work it out.

You're right. I'm not paying a lot. That's not the point. The point is that Hostpacket misrepresented themselves and they have hurt my credibility and the credibility of my business.

If i had a business that relied on a web presence, I wouldn't use something that costs 6.95/month. It's just common sense.

For a reseller, hostpacket does not work out. The downtime is incredible. It's dead/dying as far as I'm concerned. Last I heard rackshack had pulled the plug on two of their servers and they were loading everything on to the 3rd. I'm currently switching to dot5hosting.

So far, they've been really, really good. The support seems excellent.. and I've had an uptime monitor on them for the past month. 99.8% is not bad.

Both hostpacket and dot5 resell from rackshack, but with on major difference: dot5 seems to know what the hell it's doing.

Also, I was talking to someone from dot5 on icq.. he gave me a coupon: FINDSP (10% off). I asked if I could tell people about it, he said sure :-p.

I've only been on dot5 for a day, so my opinion isn't as weighty as some of the other's here, but I haven't heard a bad word about dot5.

If i had a business that relied on a web presence, I wouldn't use something that costs 6.95/month. It's just common sense.

You know what? Comments like this ANNOY THE HELL out of me. Common sense to WHO exactly? Because I too signed up with Hostpacket from the comments in these Forums AND their GUARANTEE of 99.9% uptime.

Yes, their prices were damned low, and yes I was leary...But again, there was plenty of postive feedback so I gave them a try.

Here are the current FACTS about Hostpacket:
- My site (along with pretty much everyone else) has been down for almost 24hrs now
- ABSOLUTELY no communications have been offered from Hostpacket as to any kind of status

Sorry but I don't care if I paid $1.00, that is UNACCEPTABLE.

Sorry but I don't care if I paid $1.00, that is UNACCEPTABLE.

you get what you pay for. if they were a larger company that charged regular prices, you know they'd have the ability to perform regular backups and provider better redundancy.

Here are the current FACTS about Hostpacket:
- My site (along with pretty much everyone else) has been down for almost 24hrs now
- ABSOLUTELY no communications have been offered from Hostpacket as to any kind of status

If you had sent an email to support like i have, you would have received a response such as this by now:

Hi,

For the latest information about our crisis, please go to:

http://www.hostpacket.net/forum

all clients are required to change the name server to:

ns4.hostpacket.net
216.127.82.107

ns5.hostpacket.net
66.220.30.134

for resellers, please change the name server to:

ns1.yourdomain.com
216.127.82.107

ns2.yourdomain.com
66.220.30.134

as well as all your clients

we need your help, if you could stand in our side, we can pass this crisis

Sincerely apologize for any inconveniences

Best Regards,
Kevin
HostPacket.net