Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Newbie asks a question about hosts and email:

[brownpau]

Hi all! I'm new to WHT. (Though Chicken has probably seen me hanging out at FWS.)

Anyway, I have a client hosted on Your-site.com, and they've been having consistent POP email problems -- timeouts everyday. Now, the boss is assigning me a second design and hosting gig, but he wants it hosted somewhere else -- preferably cheaper, with more reliable POP and SMTP service, and webmail if possible.

If the boss likes the service of this second host, he'll have me move the first one (the one at Your-Site) to the new host too.

So far, I've looked over Hostiva, Valuablehost, CrazyHostGuy, and Tacidblue. (No, I'm just kidding about that last one.)

Specs needed:

- at least 30MB space
- at least 2GB bandwidth
- 10 POP email addresses
- webmail

The client is an advertising video production studio in Manila, so there'll be a lot of MPEG portfolio samples and Flash, but no scripting or e-commerce features needed, and traffic won't be anything monstrous. What the boss does want is reliable and easy-to-use email for his employees. Nothing fancy, really, and I know there's a lot of hosts out there which offer this. But is there something with which I'm assured of lasting and reliable stability?

Recommendations and feedback are appreciated. Thanx!

[Dogma]

Check out www.aletiahosting.com They have great support and packages! They also just got a forum, so if you have questions, check out www.aletiaforums.com

[CD Burnt]

if you want a big brand name, try AT&T small business hosting.

otherwise, try http://hostingmatters.com/

(I've used them both)

[brownpau]

I should edit my requirements a bit...

- at least 30MB space
- at least 2GB bandwidth
- 10 POP email addresses per domain
- webmail
- below $50/yr for each domain

What if I just use BigMailBox or a similar service to implement the webmail?

[Michael-MS]

Hey brownpau.. welcome to WHT!

It might be more difficult to find a webhost that offers a web mail program, otherwise almost any host should be able to meet the requirements of your site for under $60 / year.

The only differences would probably be server up-time and tech support.

If you want some more web hosts to look at, you can always post a new message in the "Web Hosting Offers and Requests" forum. Because webhosts aren't allowed to post their offers here.

Regarding the webmail, I think those services that you mentioned are mainly for selling pop3 mail boxes for your domain. We have a couple of customers using them on our servers even though we offer Web Mail.

But I don't think you'd want to go through the trouble of setting it up if the only reason would be to access a couple of accounts through webmail. (i.e. not selling the email addresses).

Good luck with finding a host.

[brownpau]

If you want some more web hosts to look at, you can always post a new message in the "Web Hosting Offers and Requests" forum. Because webhosts aren't allowed to post their offers here.

Thanks, Michael. I'll do that right now. (And how can I not go over to Mastersites and take a look?)