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Thread: Layer42 review
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06-25-2008, 10:17 AM #1Newbie
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Layer42 review
Layer 42 is a truly evil company. we've been their customers for one year and we found the following facts:
- there is no onsite support. they claim there is, but there is not. for example, not a single emergency ticket was ever responded. we had to drive to facility to restart equipment
- facility has frequent power failures. once they didn't even answer the phones when it happened.
- and the worst: all contracts are auto renewed, and require 60 -day notice prior to expiration. there is *only* a year option for any service. don't phase out contracts: we had cabinets and 50mbit/s bandwidth from august, then we bought much more bandwidth in december. since they do *only*anual contracts, cabinets were expiring in next august and bandwidth four months later. in order to leave, we're now faced either to waste money for 4 months of bandwidth or 8 months of cabinets. no, they explicitly won't let us buy any of these monthly.
yes, it sucks.
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06-25-2008, 10:37 AM #2Web Hosting Master
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This is fairly common. I know that I have no interest in doing business unless their is going to be a long term business relationship associated to it. Lots of businesses share that viewpoint. If you want people to work hard for you, they're going to need that you're going to be around. How they operate internally after the fact will vary, but I do know the owner and he is a good guy so i'm finding this hard to believe without hearing the other side of the story. I've never been a customer of theirs though so I can't really attest on a business level.
Is it safe to assume that you've stated your concerns to Layer42 directly prior to flaming them on your first WHT post?James Cornman
365 Data Centers - AS19151/AS29838
Colocation • Network Connectivity • Managed Infrastructure Services
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06-25-2008, 10:40 AM #3Randy
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- there is no onsite support. they claim there is, but there is not. for example, not a single emergency ticket was ever responded. we had to drive to facility to restart equipmentFast Serv Networks, LLC | AS29889 | DDOS Protected | Managed Cloud, Streaming, Dedicated Servers, Colo by-the-U
Since 2003 - Ashburn VA + San Diego CA Datacenters
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06-25-2008, 10:48 AM #4Newbie
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yes we did. we had a long phone call without success.
yearly contract is not the issue. that we understand well.
the problem is our two contracts are phased differently (cabinets and bandwidth, because we added more bandwidth couple of months later).
now, after cabinets expire, they won't let us continue on monthly basis until the second one (bandwidth) also expires.
that means we either have to waste bandwidth 4 months, waste cabinets 8 months or simply continue with layer 42 (we want to leave)
I find this a very bad business practice and a form of extortion.
I do read about Steve being a good guy, and I find hard to believe the situation we're left in
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06-25-2008, 10:52 AM #5Web Hosting Master
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Well, I know when I'm negotiating contracts, before anything gets signed I make sure their is a clause to prorate the dates of things. if they want your business they'd make that provision for you. That way your terms would line up. Good luck.
James Cornman
365 Data Centers - AS19151/AS29838
Colocation • Network Connectivity • Managed Infrastructure Services
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06-25-2008, 10:55 AM #6Newbie
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we're talking about two cabinets and 150mbit/s of bandwidth
btw, we're ranked fifth application company on facebook platform.
and due credit: L42 has great network link.
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06-25-2008, 12:20 PM #7Junior Guru Wannabe
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I normally do not respond to emails like this in public. But
since this customer has gone out of their way to slander my
business (as part of this process, they also threatened to do this). I feel
it is my duty to my shareholders and my employees to to do so.
"No Onsite Support" - Our datacenter is staffed 24 hours a day.
On multiple occasions this customer claimed tickets were opened,
but never did. Our investigation found their browser was blocking cookies, which caused them to be logged out of the ticket system before the ticket was opened. When they tried to submit a ticket they were returned to the login page, which should be a hint. They never bothered to call us to tell us their might be a problem. We notified the customer that our ticket system required cookies, and they continued to ignore us.
I believed this happened 3 times.
"Frequent Power Outages" - We have had 1 power failure in 2 years
due to a faulty battery system. The problem was fixed, and we
have not had a power outage since that time (about 1 year). We were very upfront with customers when it happened, and issued an RFO within 24 hours. We also took many corrective actions to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen again (moved from third party to factory service on the UPSes among others).
And yes, we didn't answer the phone for about 15 minutes after the outage, while the phone system came back online. That is the problem with using a Asterisk based system I suppose.
"Contract renewal" - This is standard industry practice and is
clearly stated in the first paragraph of our 1 page contract. We don't hide it in a 10 page contract like some of the larger providers, we clearly state it. This is a problem we ourselves face when we buy service, and we make sure if we want to cancel something, we cancel it when we are supposed to. I do make it a point to read and understand all contracts I sign, and I would hope that everyone did the same thing.
I think James Cornman provided a really good answer to why our industry has auto renewing contracts, thanks James!
"Can't go month to month" - This seemes irrelevant, as the contracts have already renewed. However, I will say that we
offered to sign a new contract and remove some unused services
and that the customer refused since they only want a month to
month contract. Can't have your cake and eat it too. We tried
to do the right thing.
Last edited by ST-3; 06-25-2008 at 12:30 PM.
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06-25-2008, 12:37 PM #8Newbie
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06-25-2008, 12:56 PM #9NetOps Guy
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Originally Posted by ivko
I've had nothing but a great experience there, so I'm confused as to where you've been going.
PS: if you blow your own circuit breaker, and consider that a power outage, you might want to reinvestigate what caused your circuit breaker to blow...AppliedOperations - Premium Service
Bandwidth | Colocation | Hosting | Managed Services | Consulting
www.appliedops.net
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06-25-2008, 01:08 PM #10Junior Guru Wannabe
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06-25-2008, 01:08 PM #11Newbie
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[QUOTE=appliedops;5180161PS: if you blow your own circuit breaker, and consider that a power outage, you might want to reinvestigate what caused your circuit breaker to blow...[/QUOTE]
not the case.
We owe public to know how Layer42 locks in their customers, or how they blame cookies for why they didn't respond to customer's tickets. I'm a web developer - and I always use default browser configuration (FF). I know that was a bad answer.
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06-25-2008, 01:11 PM #12Newbie
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06-25-2008, 01:12 PM #13Junior Guru Wannabe
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Ivko, ticket #s please?
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06-25-2008, 01:29 PM #14Web Hosting Master
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06-25-2008, 01:34 PM #15Web Hosting Master
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If you can't interpret your contracts or negotiate properly, I'm failing to see how this is Layer42's fault. You are the authoritative person that knows your exact needs and are responsible for planning properly. If you can't plan your business and forecast its needs for growth/expansion/migration to another DC/etc, that's your own problem.
Contracts exist to protect both parties. They're protecting their bottom line and I see nothing wrong with it. On the same token they're protecting yours by being bound to provide services as defined. Airing dirty laundry regarding contracts and other possibly proprietary information is only making you look like unprofessional. Stop. Discuss with them privately as its nothing the public needs to know. Stop trying to be a martyr here.
As for your power/support ticket issues, i'm leaning towards Layer42 on this one. Knowing this business, power outages can break companies and I just don't see them tolerating such things.
For support, did you even bother to get some sort of support SLA from them? This should be standard procedure.
In short, if you can't set forth your demands and get everyone to agree (regarding contract proration, etc), you have no right to call them out on things and accuse them of having bad practices.James Cornman
365 Data Centers - AS19151/AS29838
Colocation • Network Connectivity • Managed Infrastructure Services
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06-25-2008, 01:35 PM #16Junior Guru Wannabe
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06-25-2008, 01:43 PM #17Newbie
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I've been customer of various colo/dedicated services for number of years, and Layer42 simply can't lock in their customers this way. Period.
I'll stop here for this thread becoming back and forth.
Thanks everybody for listening.
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06-25-2008, 01:54 PM #18Away
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06-25-2008, 04:11 PM #19Web Hosting Master
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Blame it on the customer or blame it on Layer42, having two separate contracts for related services that are not on the same schedule is a problem. The new contract should have been coterminous with the existing one; this is a relatively standard thing in the IT/telecom industry.
IMHO, it's generally not worth it to keep a dissatisfied customer. I would find a way to break off the relationship that is acceptable to both sides.Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
Current specials here. Check them out.
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06-25-2008, 06:38 PM #20THE Web Hosting Master
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I'm with Jay, the annual contract is pretty standard and doesn't seem to be the issue. The issue seems to be that:
1) The contract automatically renews on a 1 year terms, not month-to-month after the initial term, as is the case with basically all contracts I have ever dealt with. The customer did agree to these terms though, if it were an issue, it should have been brought up before the contract was signed, not after. Still, it is not a completely common situation to expect, etc.
2) When the new contract was signed the two contracts should have been set to co terminate. I would think the company would and should recommend that that be the case, but it is ultimately the customer's responsibility to request it, as they're the one signing the contract.
Basically, I feel Layer42 should have been more helpful initially, working out co termination terms from the beginning, etc. Other than that though, the customer should understand the contract they're signing, especially when it is a paper contract, not just a posted terms of service on a web site.Karl Zimmerman - Founder & CEO of Steadfast
VMware Virtual Data Center Platform
karl @ steadfast.net - Sales/Support: 312-602-2689
Cloud Hosting, Managed Dedicated Servers, Chicago Colocation, and New Jersey Colocation
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06-25-2008, 07:39 PM #21Junior Guru Wannabe
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06-25-2008, 08:23 PM #22Web Hosting Master
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I believe Layer42 does not deserve this negative thread nor this type of review and I hope whoever read this thread will not stop on the first post. I can feel how ivko the customer would express his/her complaints, but annual contract is a standard in this industry.
I am sure that everything can be solved favorably for all. I strongly believe that this thread should be locked/solved since this issue is a domestic issue between Layer42 and his customer.
Cheers!Reyner Natahamidjaja
:: Global IP Networks - Tier 3 Data Center and Managed IT Solutions
:: SSAE 16 SOC-2, PCI and HIPAA Compliant
:: https://gipnetworks.com
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06-25-2008, 11:52 PM #23Junior Guru Wannabe
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I have been a customer of Layer 42 for quite some time and I can tell you that Steve and his staff have gone way out of his way for my team. They have been staffed and helpful every time I have needed them.