I have been reading for a while postings about hosting companies. I made a choice to host my server with Dialtone. Experiences so far have been good, I heard few bad things about their support but never about their connectivity and hardware issues. My salesperson was very knowledgeable and helpful, his name is Rolando. I wanted to share my experiences so far (2 1/2 months) with everyone. I hosted with 2 other companies before and never got the service DI gives me from a call to see how everything is going with my server to new offers they have. I give them 2 thumbs up :agree:

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DMK Internet

We've had a server with them for about a month now, and so far so good. We probably would have gotten a server there sooner if they hadn't had the 95% bandwith measurment deal (they've since changed their policy on that and are now measuring straight data transfer amounts).

Originally posted by Lutz
My salesperson was very knowledgeable and helpful, his name is Rolando.
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DMK Internet

You have to be wary of Rolando. He tend to disappear if you've got a serious problem. But generally tech support is good (real 24/7) and with a first class network, offset their higher costs. They have easily recovered from the Bind attack in Feb-March which hit, I was told, more than 500 machines on their network.

I am with them for almost a year now and seriously looking into numerous cheaper alternatives. But I may miss the feeling of security.

Be very careful of Rolando. He has a tendency to promise and ocmmit to get the sale. Confirm everything that he says twice via email.

My experience with Dialtoneinternet has been excellent, except their default partition setup and their control panel breaking when I upgraded Apache. I had to get someone else to redo the suexec setup to make it work.

The support for day to day issues is top notch... no questions about that!

Sometime next month marks the one year mark for me being at Dialtone. I wouldn't think of using anyone else. No company is perfect, though DI sure comes close. They strive to improve constantly.

Because I make periodic suggestions (and they listen), I find out about some things in the works from their responses. For instance, they are working on their next release of their server interface and it will have greater flexibility in allowing users to upgrade programs and add new ones without incapacitating the server interface.

I've said before that the most important feature of any host is their attitude as that will be reflected in everything they do, from how they treat their customers to technical support.

I really like DI's attitude. You not only will find few as good as them, but none better.

anyone who had experience with hardware failure or hardware upgrade with dialtone ?

I had 2 h/w failure...

the 1st replacement took about 1-2 hours downtime to replace the 'bad' harddrive :D not bad..

the 2nd replacement took about 12-14 hours of downtime to replace the 'bad' harddrive :(

yes.. yes. i had daily backup system with them' but still not speed up the hardware replacement..

On a side note, I did get some spam from them this morning..claming everything and the blue moon..Im not even a customer of theirs..

Funny how they got a No-Spam Clause in their User Agreeement. "Dialtone Internet has the right to charge $500 per complaint to investigate."

humm...I dont do business with any company that sends unsolicited email...I dont know about anyone else...just my 2 cents

I didn't receive anything of that kind from DI except for the newsletter and announcements (bugs/fixes etc.).

I've been with Dialtone Internet since July 2000. Other than some tech support issues here and there, I never had much of a problem with them.... until recently.

In my opinion, watch out for the billing and customer service departments. I get the feeling they're VERY un-organized. It's like that old saying of "the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing".

First off, requests I sent them to update my e-mail and mailing addresses, as well as my contact number basically went ignored, even though they (Roger and someone else I can't remember off the top of my head right now) told me that it was done. This was at the end of February 2001. Was it done? Two months later, I found out it wasn't.

The billing department is another story. They double charged me in February 2001. Then, after requesting my card be removed from the system so I can pay via check instead (didn't really appreciate the double charge, much less trust them with my card after that large $$$ mistake), they charged it again anyway in March 2001. When I contacted the billing department, the woman more or less lied to me, and said that my credit card had "already been removed from the system". Yeah, ok then why was it charged two days earlier? After pointing that out to her, she basically came back and said "oops, sorry, our bad I'll make sure that doesn't happen again".

April 2001 comes along, and I noticed I haven’t gotten an invoice or been billed since the beginning of March when they charged my card without my permission. I am usually billed toward the beginning of the month, so I contacted them yesterday (Sunday April 22) to see what was going on. "Customer Service Specialist" Julian Bejarano wrote back today (Monday 23rd) and forwarded all these invoices that they supposedly had been sending to me since last month. Well, it was the first time I had seen them.

Turns out they never updated my e-mail address like I requested two months ago. Instead, they managed to botch the OLD e-mail address they had on file from an ISP account I had cancelled, by misspelling it instead of just changing it to the newer one I had sent them. They used an "N" instead of an "R" in one place. I guess that explains why all those invoices and other support messages haven't been reaching me. During this time, I ordered the optional backup service. Anyone who has that, knows that they send you an e-mail with your backup server login information, and other sensitive information. Well I never got it. As a matter of fact, I never heard anything from them about the backup service for weeks after I placed the order. I contacted them, and they said it was processed the day I ordered. They also said an e-mail was sent with my information. Really? I never got it.

Think the botched e-mail address is bad? Oh it gets worse. I tried the misspelled domain part of the address they've been using all this time, and sure enough, it's a working site somewhere. From what I gather, THAT is where all my invoices (as well as critical server, and account information when I ordered the backup service) was going to. So on top of all this, I've got to worry about my server security now since someone at that domain probably has been getting my e-mail messages from Dialtone for the past few weeks.

As of now (11pm Monday night) the issue has not been resolved and I'm still waiting to hear from them. I sent them an email this afternoon requesting instructions on how to change my account information ASAP, once I learned that some of my server info could be in the hands of someone else at the domain they've been sending my stuff to if they have a "catch all" email account. Apparently they decided to take off for the day before helping me with quite possibly a serious security issue. An issue that they caused. Great customer service? I'll have to vote no on this one. I suppose they'll get around to it sometime on Tuesday.

I am truly amazed at the level of incompetence and insufficiency I’ve seen at Dialtone Internet recently. Or maybe it's always been like that and I didn't have to deal with it until they double charged me that one month. Who knows.

I don't know if new people came in, or they changed management, or just have too many customers to deal with now. I do know that I've wasted a lot of my time and money dealing with some of their people, and its just gotten ridiculous. How hard is it to update a customers contact information? Especially when they ask you two times, to two different people? How hard is it to stop charging someones credit card and switch them to the invoice system when asked?

Good luck to anyone who signs up with them, as well as other fellow current customers. My server seem to be up 99.9% of the time, so I really have no complaints there (other than my wusage stats have never really worked). It's the stuff that goes on at the customer service and billing departments that annoy me.

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Joe Alamo


Oh, I've saved copies of all e-mail exchanges, phone conversations, invoices, and tickets I've opened on their WonderDesk tech support site. I advise current and future Dialtone customers to do the same. I'll be happy to prove all of this if they attempt to dispute it.

I agree on billing mess. In February, they've charged me an add-on I did not order, later refunded after I pointed it out to them. In March, they've double charged my credit card for the monthly payment. I've just told my bank to dispute the extra charges.

Heh. I'm not surprised. I wonder how many other people they've double charged recently. I monitor my Discover card statement online, so I was able to catch it pretty quickly. Dialtone did a charge back a week after that blunder. I suggest all Dialtone customers go over those monthly statements and charges very carefully.

In my recent invoice, they're trying to bill me a "late fee" for the March 2001 payment. However, they charged that payment on my credit card (after I requested them not use my card anymore) on the DAY it became due. I let the payment stand for the month, so I don't see why I've been hit with a late fee for last month if they obviously got it on time. Go figure. :rolleyes: I'm still waiting for them to explain that one to me too.

Not everyone at Dialtone is a complete :homer: though. I'd like to give some props to Camilo at the support department. Really nice guy, who has always taken care of any problems I've had quickly. Even after closing time. I assume he's there most of the night. Most of the other support guys are pretty good too. I wish the rest of Dialtone could be as quick and efficient as they are.

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Joe

Just posting a follow-up to my situation with Dialtone Internet.

I talked to Matthew McCormick, who is Customer Service Manager there. Turns out Roger Donahue, who took my new information over two months ago never bothered to update the database. From what I understand, he's also been recently let go for "similar reasons that I've been experiencing", according to Matthew. New people have been brought in, so hopefully that department will be more organized now. :agree:

My e-mail address that was botched, apparently was only in the billing department database. All the other departments always had my correct address. I suppose that's good, since "only" my invoices and statements were going out to someone at that misspelled domain (since last July. ugh), and not account or password information from the tech department.

Oh, after I talked to Matthew and others yesterday about the situation with the wrong email address, the billing woman sends me an email today telling me about my account being overdue! No...really? I mean the reason I wrote Sunday was to ask why I haven't been billed since March 9th, much less seen the invoice I was supposed to get. She once again sent it to the misspelled domain, and CC'd it to my correct address, which is the only reason I even got it. :mad: I almost lost it, but then just took a deep breath and wrote back explaining the situation to her (since no one apparently talked to her yet), as well as mention that my payment was on its way, and gave her my correct contact info. Hopefully now I'll actually get those statements and invoices. I also got a quick apology out of her a couple hours later for the blunder, so that's good i guess. Still, for all the stress and wasted valuable time that department has caused over the span of two months.... Sigh. :rolleyes: Plus knowing that all my billing info and statements have been going to whoever since last July, doesn't help matters.

Lessons learned? Watch out for the Dialtone billing department (which I get the impression is only made up of one or two people). Make sure they have your correct information if you move or switch email accounts, because you can't rely on Customer Service to pass that information on to them - even if they say they will or already did. Also, check you credit card statement every month if you're paying that way, and make sure you're not being double charged or charged for something you didn't order. Judging by Mivo's reply, I wasn't the only one who had this problem as well.

Hopefully that's the end of it and I wont have any other problems in the future (knock on wood). Now I can go back to concentrating on our business and web sites.

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Joe

Well, I need to agree with you guys on Dialtones billing. They are something else. They tried to bill us $54.00 for 4 of the Linux II Wholesale servers. We brought it to there attention the price should have been over $900.00, this the additions, then we submitted payment. They would not accept the $900 payment and once again said it was $54.00. I know, I know, why not just pay $846.00 less and shut up ;-) Their service, connectivity, and pretty much the all around company has been more than we could have asked for, compared to them Alabanza boys. So we would just feel bad ;-) Also, when we requested Tech. Support, your suppose to pay for them to help you. So we asked for directions on how to do something, have them send the directions to us, and bill us. Once again, they would not take our money. They set up what we needed help with, and didnt charge us. I have read many replies here about how there Tech. Support could be better, but on our side, they have been superior with there answers and reply time. They responded in 29 minutes once, and another time it was only 12 minutes. Out of these Tech. Support requests, they still would not accept our money. We are starting to think that our money is dirty, or no good, or they just dont want it or something ;-)

I give Dialtone a big thumbs up. They have yet to let us down, and lets hope they can keep up the good work.

Thanks for your time-
J. Strong

LOL! Atleast it was a positive discrepancy for you :)

it always makes you wonder when you have ONE person with ONE post who has JUST joined with such praises...

(i now know how you all must have felt when i walked in here with 1 post and started replying!, lol)

Well xtstrike, Dialtone has been a very positive experience for us. Them boys over there at Alabanza I swear tried to run us in the ground. Maybe we are just overly shocked with the service change to Dialtone. Bottom line is, we are very satisfied, and more importantly, our customers are very satisfied with the change to them, and that is all that matters.

jstrong, I agree with you. Their support gets a positive response from (99% of the time).

Sometimes you just have to excuse the cynicism we carry around with us ;)

Well I cant really talk for DialTone myself, as i have not experienced them yet.

My policy is that all companies are good in my eyes unless i have experienced them first hand, of course if 50 people tell me their service sucks badly then that may also be a judging factor too :) lol

I think DI is serious to become responsive to their customers as they've recently hired new customer relations personnel. A couple of months back I got one of their high-priced newly introduced Sphera servers but I experienced a lot of problem with the new server on its DNS, virtual hosting on VDS, etc. and it seemed their tech support were still learning the OS themselves that they could not solved my issues at that time.

Additionally they were badly hit by the BIND worm at that time so as a result my problems were not well attended to. Almost a month with the new server, I sent them a cancellation notice. It was at this point when my good account manager Rolando stopped responding to my e-mails and phone calls and their billing department continued charging me for the new server that I never used.

Later, Matthew McCormick, their customer service manager, contacted me and I explained to him my side. With the approval from their CEO, my order was cancelled and they refunded what I have paid.

We use Dialtone, but are not too happy with their support department. Fortunately we don't need their help very often.

We used them twice in two years, with problems we were unable to resolve through telnet. The first time it took them 4 days to bring the server back online from a fairly simple problem that only took them 30 minutes to fix once they worked on it.

Needless to say we were not very happy having a server down that long. It cost us four clients, the rest were understanding about the problem.

That would have cost them our business had we not been on a two year contract. That taught us not to sign two year contracts. :smash:

The second time was last month. After three days they were unable to fix the problem, but during the period we discovered it was a conflict between their interface and the secure cert that we are using so we told them to forget it. So we now know that if we add a client to the secure servers we must do it manually instead of using the interface or it will break the secure server.

Frankly I received the impression that their techs are inexperienced and learning on the job.

Overall, if you can handle the tech support yourself they are a good company. Their prices are reasonable and we have several servers with them. We have found their sales and customer service department to be excellent. Too bad their tech support is not as good as the other departments. (Never had a billing problem, so I don't know about that department)

We are considering a new NOC in Dallas, but are hesitant since they are new. They offer excellent co-location prices.

I have been with Dialtone for over a year now. They are extremely responsive. I have had very good luck with them. I have had a couple of hiccups with them, but they always manage to get it cleaned up without much fuss. I was double billed last month....I just notified them and they fixed it immediately.

They have very fast connection speeds and I don't know of any downtime with them so far.

I also have worked with Rolando...he's a sales guy what do you expect. His job is to sell stuff...lots of stuff. He is aggressive but not unlike any other salesman I know. :D

Anyway, I give them two smiles :) :) and a wink ;)

DI has been great for us . I can see where the billing can be confusing at times , Ive spoke with 3-4 different billing gals so I know they have more than 1-2 but that might be part of the problem ;) . Their connections are top notch , fast, reliable, and Roland has also been great in helpgin us with our special needs. We have a great arrangement with them and only need support when we send a new server to our racks or to get reboots. Support has always been very fast and not full of BS. I recommend them ;)

When I was with Dialtone, I had a guy who handled my account including support, 99% of the time, i was never able to get ahold of him

After i sold that server with the clients, the new owners kept "testing" ips and using someone elses ip on the system (the owners claimed it wasnt them haha) so dialtone, after numerious requests, shut the server down, resulting 200 websites that had no website for about a week...

Even though I had a so-so experience with them when i owned the server, I wouldnt go back to them.

Originally posted by Superman
On a side note, I did get some spam from them this morning..claming everything and the blue moon..Im not even a customer of theirs..I bet it was not Dialtone itself, but one of their affiliates. Check if the address which you were proposed to click was something like www.qksrv.net/click-741678-1196407 (that's my affiliate number, but I never sent unsolicited e-mail :angry: ). The numbers after "click-" are unique for each affiliate. Report the URL back to DI and they should exclude affiliate from the program.

yup, it was dialtone...direct from their sales department

i even used SpamCop and confirmed it

My experience with Dialtone was very bad. Promises made by my sales person with regards to help and support were not honored. During the first week the server went down twice and the DNS stopped working. Support for the first 30 days was supposed to be free, yet they attempted to charge me for support. The problems were not my fault. Also my sales person was not to be found when I started having problems.

I see that others posting on this board have similiar problems with Dialtone. I wish I had found this board before I ordered service with them.

When I told Dialtone that I was cancelling due to not receiving what I was promised they told me I was not cancelling they were enforcing their 6 month contract. They even informed me that they had some lawyers on their board of directors so their contract was ironclad!

So instead of providing me the help and support that was promised, which would have made me a happy customer, they started bullying me with their contract. At that point they did offer to help me, however only after I told them I was cancelling! My confidence in Dialtone was zero at that point because if I have to get to the point that I want to cancel a service before I am offered what I was promised, then I can no longer do business with such a company.

I ended up paying them 1 month's hosting service for the 1 week that I was with them just to get out of the contract. I did not like doing this but felt it was in my best interest because of the time I had already wasted with them and the problems that I had with them. I feel that I could have retained a lawyer and not have had to pay Dialtone anything, but I would have had to pay the lawyer, and spend extra time on the matter, so I opted for the 1 month fee and putting the bad experience behind me.

Sure there are those that have never had a problem with them and swear by them because they do offer good prices and have a good network. However, beware if you do have a problem, with Dialtone the customer is not always right, their contracts are always right and they are not open to discuss anything different. Also beware that their contract automatically renews at the end of 6 months for another 6 months!

I have since discovered that the vast majority of hosting companies (dedicated and otherwise) DO NOT require contracts, you are on a month to month basis. This is the way to go, the company has to deliver what is promised and earn your loyalty instead ot trying to FORCE you to remain with them.

I guess I am used to doing business the old fashioned way where a business earns a customer's trust and respect. When one of my customers has a problem I bend over backwards to help them. I always give my customers the benefit of the doubt also. Sometimes this costs me a little money or time but it has made for very loyal customers and also many referrals.

I will do everything possible to try to insure that my next hosting company does business with the same philosophy that I use. I am currently researching dedicated hosting companies. Of course you never know for sure until you try them.

We are hosting more than 10 servers with Dialtone
and have the same experience.

Their billing system seems to be totally out of control
and they charged our credit card for more than twice
the amount they sent us invoices for.

It's almost impossible to keep track of all the invoices
since they send us one invoice for every server.
Imagine that! We have around 10 servers. Almost
every server has at least backup, an extra hard drive
and extra blocks of ram.
This means we recieve around 30 invoices from Dialtone
every month! And they charge our credit card the same
number of times. This is actually a problem since a
VISA card has a maximum number of times it can be
charged each 24 hours. and when Dialtone recieves
a negative response from VISA the xx'th time they
charge our card, they send us a friendly email telling
us that the server will be taken down.

We have tried to discuss this with Dialtone several
times but with no luck. It's like disussing with an
autoresponder:mad:

Hello everyone,

Iv'e had an "el cheapo summer special" dedicated box with DI since 8/00. :D

Great folks. I'm inclined to judge a host by how they resolve a problem and long term usage.

Last month I recieved a proactive email that told me my server was down. Turns out the power supply failed. One hour and 38 minutes later the box was up and all the domains resolved. They swaped the boxes and installed my old HD + memory and in this procedure I even got a faster CPU at no charge. Outstanding stuff!

Yes, Iv'e had a few billing glitches and had to call and they were quickly fixed. The Admin is showing it's age a bit. The geeks in the NOC are also very helpfull when it's crunch time. I love their concern over security and the procedures they employed with the recent bind upgrade.

I wouldn't hesitate to recomend them and often do.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Dialtone either when
it comes to support and technical expertice, (ehm, well,
they managed to upgrade me with a buggy version of
Bind which made 4000 zones unavailable for 24 hours
but these things can happen).

But if they want to keep large customers with 10+ servers
they have to get a grip on their billing department.
No one can afford to cooperate with a company which
overcharge you and can't give you a decent explanation
and/or excuse.

But as I said; I really love Dialtone's quick responses
on support queries and their technical expertice. I
don't think anyone can beat them, - and I have tried a
few different datacenters ;)

Originally posted by erik
(ehm, well,
they managed to upgrade me with a buggy version of
Bind which made 4000 zones unavailable for 24 hours
but these things can happen).

That happened to me too! They told us to upgrade our BIND version because of the remote root exploit. I did, but then the DNS stopped working for some of the domains so I reverted back to the old version. Then DI went and upgraded BIND on our server, but those domains broke again.

Apparently, the newer version of BIND is stricter about configuration file syntax.

Originally posted by pmak0

Apparently, the newer version of BIND is stricter about configuration file syntax.

Yes, and the Server Interface isn't exactly _very_ strict
when it creates a new zone ;) It still doesn't set a TTL
value.