Forgive me I am no expert in this area.

I bought myself some cheap reseller hosting a few months ago.
Mainly for the experience, and to park some domains.

Recently I had some problems with other domain hosting for my main domain (a community forum)

Never having any problems with my reseller hoting I moved that domain to my Reseller hosting.

I found the Reseller host to be helpfull in restoring the SQL file. But at the time they appeared to have some down time. Now however it is working fine.

Now I know what you will say. You get what you pay for etc etc.
But do you.

I have no intention of selling on any of the reseller hosting, though I may make it available to friends later.

Now I was thinking (a dangerouse thing!) As I have no idea who my reseller buys his hosting from? Another Reseller perhaps, and that reseller, where do they buy their reseller hosting from?

I am not just at the mercy of the reseller above me, there may be others further down the line who could go belly up or at least lose service from time to time, with support tickets passing down the chain?

Perhaps someone can explain the system.

This is the bad situation with kiddie hosts you never know how many resellers down the line there are, if I were you I'd only go with people who actually own the server's and the root accounts that way you know they can fix any problem you have and will be able to provide you with a stable, solid hosting experience.

Why would you want to be on an overcrowded server? Just avoid hosts that have been setup with WHOIS Protection or that have been setup that month and that will protect you from about 70% of kiddie hosts, also do they have a phone number? If not that's another sign of a kiddie host.

Now I was thinking (a dangerouse thing!) As I have no idea who my reseller buys his hosting from? Another Reseller perhaps, and that reseller, where do they buy their reseller hosting from?

I am not just at the mercy of the reseller above me, there may be others further down the line who could go belly up or at least lose service from time to time, with support tickets passing down the chain?

You cannot have more than 2 layers of reseller with cpanel.
A standard cpanel reseller cannot create reseller account.
Some addon scripts allow reseller to create sub reseller but the sub account can create hosting package only.

As MH-Andy says, try and go with companies who own their own servers or have root access. Not all companies can start off and own/lease their own servers right away (and some companies who are resellers are good quality, I'm sure), however if you intend to host others (even if it's just friends), it makes sense to go with a company who have root access (even if they host on a VPS).

What type of plan did you have when you mentioned cheap? Was it one of those unlimited/unmetered plans?

If you go further down the layer things will be getting more worse. So it is not advisable to go beyond layer 2 IMO also. The better thing is to have the reseller from the provider who owns the server. But it may not be possible always.

I posted a lengthy reply to this.
When I Submitted, it told me I needed 5 posts, and I lost the reply?

Forgive me I am no expert in this area.

I bought myself some cheap reseller hosting a few months ago.
Mainly for the experience, and to park some domains.

Recently I had some problems with other domain hosting for my main domain (a community forum)

Never having any problems with my reseller hoting I moved that domain to my Reseller hosting.

I found the Reseller host to be helpfull in restoring the SQL file. But at the time they appeared to have some down time. Now however it is working fine.

Now I know what you will say. You get what you pay for etc etc.
But do you.

I have no intention of selling on any of the reseller hosting, though I may make it available to friends later.

Now I was thinking (a dangerouse thing!) As I have no idea who my reseller buys his hosting from? Another Reseller perhaps, and that reseller, where do they buy their reseller hosting from?

I am not just at the mercy of the reseller above me, there may be others further down the line who could go belly up or at least lose service from time to time, with support tickets passing down the chain?

Perhaps someone can explain the system.

If you are using cPanel with Master Reseller enabled, no telling how many "reseller, reseller, reseller resellers" there may be :O

Yes I agree go with the company that has root access or owns the server, I lost money one time when I bought a reseller account from someone, they told me they owned their server, weeks later I get an email saying the server was being shut down and the shut down was beyond his control, WAIT you told me you own the server so how can a shut down be beyond your control

You cannot have more than 2 layers of reseller with cpanel.
A standard cpanel reseller cannot create reseller account.
Some addon scripts allow reseller to create sub reseller but the sub account can create hosting package only.
Actually Your off on that number, thanks to scrips like ZamFoo, there are MANY more layers

ZamFoo Reseller (Root Reseller)
Super Alpha Master Reseller (its insane but can happen)
Alpha Master Reseller
Master Reseller
Reseller
End User
This is the problem with some hosts. They will offer Alpha Resellers just because they can. This will snowball quickly if not properly managed. Personally the most I will ever offer is Master Reseller and I limit those even to 5 per server. Some "kiddie" hosts think you can put 50 Super Alpha Master Resellers on the same 512 MB VPS. This is why most Alpha Reseller Hosting providers disappear after a few months.

<touch wood>The reseller hosting that I have now moved my main site to, and parked a few domains in, is running fine </touch wood>

@mick2me

GREAT TO HEAR. Please do a follow up post in a few months if you can. I am curious to see how everything turns out