Just wanted to give you guys some new feedback on United Colo.

First let me say I've had dedicated servers or colocated servers with at least 7 different companies in the past few years. Different places for different projects. Disclaimer: I'm a web developer, I'm NOT a network engineer.

LAST WEEK:
Anyway... I have my client order a United Colo $99/mth 500gig a month special. Seems like a good deal to me.

As soon as I get it I see it's incredibly slow. Webmin takes 30 seconds to load a page or I get a "page cannot be displayed". So, I email tech support right away. They say "yea, that's weird - we'll have to have a network engineer look at it."

Next day. Nothing. So I email again. (with trace routes showing a time out at my box, and slow access at their gateway)

Next day. Nothing. So I email again. (with trace routes showing a time out at my box, and slow access at their gateway)

Somewhere in there I ask them to consider just popping me on another box, or trying somewhere else on the network.

I skip Sat & Sun - figuring their probably working on it + I'm busy.

Monday... still no response.

So I email again. I get an email back saying... "Huh... we got a decent traceroute from this one place."

They didn't say they could log in and DO anything on the box though. Great. I try again, still no useable access. I traceroute from every box I have access to and call a couple friends in other States to see if they can Webmin in. Still timing out from everywhere.

I reply - "Well I just did trace routes from SamSpade.org, My home box in Phoenix, my Datapipe server in New Jersey, my server in Colorado and my server at Rackshack and they all are giving horrible responses or timing out.

I can't even use Webmin and SSH disconnects IF I get connected. "

So I'm thinking - these guys don't have a clue at this point if I have to convince THEM there's a problem with their network. That's their job, right? Keeping their own network running?

So I'm thinking - if I have to figure this out for them, I can't imagine things getting any better from here - so I say, look, I've never been able to even access the box - let's just cancel the account.

So they take a day to respond and say - "OK, your account's been cancelled... but there are NO REFUNDS." So they keep my client's $100.

Nice. That makes me look terrific. I took a chance because I wanted to try someone new and the stuff I had read here didn't look too bad about them.

OOPS. Now you guys have the REAL scoop. Consider any United Colo decision very carefully because if you have trouble, even if it's an obvious one like my issue - not only will they not try to solve it, they might argue with you about there even BEING any trouble and keep your money to boot. Sweet.

FYI- during my trace routes Rackshack consistently had the best traceroute returns of any of the hosts I'm on.


Joel

i'm really scared cuz i'm trying to purchase a p4 server.

is that no reason they just canceled your account? that's really insane, i hope the company should at least give some explanation

i mean, no refund?

1) Tell your client to do a charge back
2) if he can't then tell your client to contact the place you report to (my brain isn't functioning right now) in SF.
Sorry to hear that but best solution I could come up with.

They didn't just cancel me for no reason. Don't worry about that.

I "requested" that they cancel it because I could never access the server and they didn't seem to care too much about that. For 5 days.

I mean, how long am I supposed to keep telling my client I can't log in?

There literally were no file modifications on my server because I could never get in for more than a minute.

If you're getting one from them just test the hell out of it and make sure the network is running smoothly. I just think something's weird there right now.

-----
Here's a couple samspade.org results I got that were typical. There's a bit of slow mo' going on here.

SamSpade.org
3 130.152.180.21 6.336 ms isi-1-lngw2-atm.ln.net [AS226] Los Nettos origin AS
4 198.32.146.21 15.333 ms mae-la.above.net [AS226] Los Nettos origin AS
5 208.185.156.10 14.570 ms pos3-3.mpr2.lax2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
6 208.185.156.125 15.830 ms pos2-0.mpr1.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
7 208.184.102.202 121.856 ms so-1-1-0.mpr4.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
8 64.125.30.29 81.291 ms so-5-1-0.cr2.dca2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
9 208.184.233.130 81.696 ms so-6-0-0.cr2.iad1.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
10 208.185.0.109 80.941 ms so-0-0-0.cr1.iad1.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
11 208.184.233.62 85.256 ms so-2-0-0.cr1.lga1.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
12 64.125.30.18 85.496 ms so-1-0-0.cr1.lga3.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
13 216.200.56.54 86.525 ms 216.200.56.54.has.no.reverse (DNS error) [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
14 65.19.141.229 85.164 ms gsr12012.ash.he.net [AS6517/AS6939] Yipes Communications Inc. / HE.net
15 65.19.141.234 88.067 ms pos3-1.gsr12008.pao.he.net [AS6517/AS6939] Yipes Communications Inc. / HE.net
16 198.32.176.162 89.685 ms border1-g1-2.pao1.wworks.net (DNS error)
17 66.111.47.1 90.114 ms GigE-9.sfo-core1.ucg.net (Fake rDNS)
18 66.111.50.150 92.330 ms DNS error

Or another that timed out.

SamSpade.org

3 130.152.80.30 5.942 ms isi-1-lngw2-pos.ln.net [AS226] Los Nettos origin AS
4 198.32.146.21 14.335 ms mae-la.above.net [AS226] Los Nettos origin AS
5 208.185.156.10 14.292 ms pos3-3.mpr2.lax2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
6 208.185.156.125 14.217 ms pos2-0.mpr1.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
7 208.184.102.202 14.593 ms so-1-1-0.mpr4.sjc2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
8 64.125.30.29 80.901 ms so-5-1-0.cr2.dca2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
9 208.184.233.121 80.478 ms so-0-0-0.cr1.dca2.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
10 208.184.233.126 81.100 ms so-6-0-0.cr1.iad1.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
11 208.184.233.62 85.609 ms so-2-0-0.cr1.lga1.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
12 64.125.30.18 84.898 ms so-1-0-0.cr1.lga3.us.mfnx.net [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
13 216.200.56.54 85.309 ms 216.200.56.54.has.no.reverse (DNS error) [AS6461] Primary AS for Abovenet
14 65.19.141.229 84.801 ms gsr12012.ash.he.net [AS6517/AS6939] Yipes Communications Inc. / HE.net
15 65.19.141.234 87.771 ms pos3-1.gsr12008.pao.he.net [AS6517/AS6939] Yipes Communications Inc. / HE.net
16 198.32.176.162 286.875 ms border1-g1-2.pao1.wworks.net (DNS error)
17 *

I mean No Refund

Yea, no refunds. Here's their agreement:
http://www.unitedcolo.com/sla.htm

Personally, I think there's an implication you actually get a working product in the agreement. In this case, I think a charge back would work if my client cares that much. That's his call though.

I even emailed United Colo to tell them I would pass on posting the story here and on Usenet if they just credited him back.

They didn't respond to that. So, what the heck... I hope 2 people here opt for another service so it costs them more than it would have if they had just done the correct thing. And they might get a chargeback too. And those cost money.

Having run a variety of my own businesses over the years, I just can't imagine what they are thinking. It's not long term thinking, that's for sure.

Joel

My only problems:
1) they changed my root password back to default after i changed it on one of my servers (though they did notify me they never gave a reason why except that their senior engineer dude requested it)
2) a server i bought yesterday didn't have any DNS servers configured but I received a resolution in about 3 minutes
3) i have thousand of gigabytes of transfer spread of serveral servers that i'll never use, not even in a lifetime. (not a complaint about network speed, i've hit the full 10mbit)

3) i have thousand of gigabytes of transfer spread of serveral servers that i'll never use, not even in a lifetime. (not a complaint about network speed, i've hit the full 10mbit)

That's really cool. That's what I was hoping for. I think there's a good chance my box was misconfigured somehow. Or my part of the network was messed up. I dunno - I couldn't get access.

They could have easily popped me onto another box though. I mean, give me a break - I offered every option and they didn't do anything. That's BS. And then they keep the money.

I wouldn't send anyone to them right now considering there are other "sure things" out there and United Colo appears to be a crap shoot at the moment.

Traceroutes don't work because they've blocked ICMP pings due to DDoS.

I've had problems doing trace routes on some rackshack servers, and united colo.. Has anyone had good experiences with them, other than Mushrew?

If you aren't gonna use all that bw, let me use it mush ;)

Traceroutes don't work because they've blocked ICMP pings due to DDoS.

Hmm.. their network people were the one's who wanted me to give them trace routes from other locations initially. And they were getting through every once in a while. Just slow as hell.

Irrelevant though. My prob was I couldn't get in via webmin or ssh. I could sorta care less about trace route speeds as long as the server is reasonably usable.

My datapipe machine has fairly slow trace routes, but the server has been great. Also, their service was terrific. We had some problems once, and they identified a drive was going bad. They transferred us to a new computer for free. Maybe 2 hours of down time. That was really cool.

These kind of things are exactly why I switched my last server from UCG to rackforce.com At least your interactions with UCG were somewhat polite.

I think unitedcolo scared everybody away but me lol...i love their he.net + internap mix; it's some kickass bandwidth at a very affordable price. Don't know what jhoster had such a bad experience but I've only had the best from them. I guess it's just luck since I have 5 problem-free servers with RS as well...:)

edit: things do change though, even though you might not like them now i'd still check them out in the future. they've definitely improved A LOT since the beginning (check back a month or two and you'll see all my unitedcolo posts involve :angry: emoticons in all of them.) but now i just love them =).

Originally posted by jhoster
So they take a day to respond and say - "OK, your account's been cancelled... but there are NO REFUNDS." So they keep my client's $100.
If it was me, and I paid by Credit Card (like I always do), then I would request a chargeback with the Credit Card company. Stating that the service that was paid for was never provided. Then it would be up to UCoLo to prove that they provided the service to you, and you have proof that they did not. In this case, I would specifically state that you purchased a webserver, and they provided you with a server that simply could not be used for that purpose.

That would let the Credit Card company deal with UCoLo's 'no refund' clause. And while it may take some time, and you may not get your money back - it's at least worth a try. ;)

I got a UGC $99 box about 4 weeks ago to test it out. The first 2 weeks were great, always getting the full 10 MBIT and no outages. The last 2 weeks have been far less pleasurable, with frequent (all be it short) outages, instable speeds at times (ranging from 80 kb/s to the full 10 MBIT) and recently the one site that I have hosted on the server is very slow at times, nearly to the point that it just times out.

It was a fun little test, but it's on to the next company I'm affraid. UGC from my short experience is that they would be good for personal projects and as a backup server, but I wouldn't go offering payed hosting off their servers.

those were the kind of reasons I switch to Servint. they absolutely have zero regard for customers.

Sorry to hear about your experience jhoster. I've had a server with them since day 1, and not experienced any major problems with their service (other than 2 outages through dos attacks)

They have always responded to phone and emails, but I have not had to dispute anything yet... maybe thats when they stop answering...

btw, Im a developer too, so not reselling hosting on this server

just my $0.02

This is very reminiscent of what happened to me when I was with UC! See http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83506 for more on that. :bawling:


Originally posted by jhoster
Just wanted to give you guys some new feedback on United Colo.

First let me say I've had dedicated servers or colocated servers with at least 7 different companies in the past few years. Different places for different projects. Disclaimer: I'm a web developer, I'm NOT a network engineer.

LAST WEEK:
Anyway... I have my client order a United Colo $99/mth 500gig a month special. Seems like a good deal to me.

As soon as I get it I see it's incredibly slow. Webmin takes 30 seconds to load a page or I get a "page cannot be displayed". So, I email tech support right away. They say "yea, that's weird - we'll have to have a network engineer look at it."

Next day. Nothing. So I email again. (with trace routes showing a time out at my box, and slow access at their gateway)

Next day. Nothing. So I email again. (with trace routes showing a time out at my box, and slow access at their gateway)

Somewhere in there I ask them to consider just popping me on another box, or trying somewhere else on the network.

I skip Sat & Sun - figuring their probably working on it + I'm busy.

Monday... still no response.

So I email again. I get an email back saying... "Huh... we got a decent traceroute from this one place."

They didn't say they could log in and DO anything on the box though. Great. I try again, still no useable access. I traceroute from every box I have access to and call a couple friends in other States to see if they can Webmin in. Still timing out from everywhere.

I reply - "Well I just did trace routes from SamSpade.org, My home box in Phoenix, my Datapipe server in New Jersey, my server in Colorado and my server at Rackshack and they all are giving horrible responses or timing out.

I can't even use Webmin and SSH disconnects IF I get connected. "

So I'm thinking - these guys don't have a clue at this point if I have to convince THEM there's a problem with their network. That's their job, right? Keeping their own network running?

So I'm thinking - if I have to figure this out for them, I can't imagine things getting any better from here - so I say, look, I've never been able to even access the box - let's just cancel the account.

So they take a day to respond and say - "OK, your account's been cancelled... but there are NO REFUNDS." So they keep my client's $100.

Nice. That makes me look terrific. I took a chance because I wanted to try someone new and the stuff I had read here didn't look too bad about them.

OOPS. Now you guys have the REAL scoop. Consider any United Colo decision very carefully because if you have trouble, even if it's an obvious one like my issue - not only will they not try to solve it, they might argue with you about there even BEING any trouble and keep your money to boot. Sweet.

FYI- during my trace routes Rackshack consistently had the best traceroute returns of any of the hosts I'm on.


Joel

I am with UNITED COLO now ... absolutely HORRIBLE!!! I have emailed them at least 30 times and they still haven't been able to solve a simple DNS problem.

There is only 1 engineer working there ... don't listen to their lies and everything on their website is FALSE advertising. Anyone try taking them to court?

I am with UNITED COLO now ... absolutely HORRIBLE!!! I have emailed them at least 30 times and they still haven't been able to solve a simple DNS problem.

There is only 1 engineer working there ... don't listen to their lies and everything on their website is FALSE advertising. Anyone try taking them to court?