Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Verizon any good?

[plnelson]

In several postings on this topic I said that all I want is a web hosting solution that's reliable and rock solid from a serious, professional company and I've cited my landline telephone service from Verizon as the archetype.

Just now I discovered that Verizon does web hosting through their Superpages division! Hmmm.

They are more expensive than the typical three-guys-and-a rack-of-blade-servers outfits that we usually see, but I don't care about cost - I want QUALITY. They seem to offer a variety of Windows and Linux solutions and packages.

When I go to the review sites I see very little about them, probably because they are a little more expensive - where can I see how they stack up for quality, performance, and business-standards against the Brinksters and Lunarpages, etc, of the world?

[jmweb]

In terms of quality they will probably deliver on it. In terms of personal service, they probably won't.

[EntropyGrid]

Originally Posted by plnelson

Just now I discovered that Verizon does web hosting through their Superpages division!

I can't comment on Superpages. However, Verizon Business is the new label for MCI/Worldcom, which includes UUNet (ASN 701).

[plnelson]

Originally Posted by jmweb

In terms of quality they will probably deliver on it. In terms of personal service, they probably won't.

Do you have any basis for this opinion? Anyway, what kind of "personal service" do we need? We just need everything to WORK, day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out.

I did a search here and on Sitepoint and while I got lots of hits, almost none were about hosting. Verizon comes up a lot in discussions of T1 lines, 'net neutrality', wireless and text-messaging interfaces, switches, etc.

Even on the HostingJury website where they seem to have a review of every hosting service ever set up by some high-school junior on a junker-PC running a free distro of Linux in his mom's laundry room, they don't list them (or Akami or other big commercial companies). I was just talking to their sales people and they seem to have a big customer base, far bigger, I suspect, than many of the webhosts listed on these review sites. Their datacenters are also multi-site, which reduces the risk of extended outages due to hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.

I do know from talking a little with them that they run some mutant Linux/Windows hybrid environment that imposes some strange limitations like no code-behind in .Net apps and possibly other weirdness. So they may not be the host for me, but my POINT is that we never talk about these big corporate hosting companies here even though they may offer a better alternative for people seeking long-term, stable, reliable web hosting.

A LOT of us are getting fed up with how Mickey-Mouse most web-hosting companies are, and getting the cheapest deal is NOT our highest priority! Multi-datacenter hosting and a multi-$billion parent company sounds good to me, and I suspect Verizon isn't the only player in that game, but we never talk about the big guys here so don't know how to find and compare them.

[mripguru]

Originally Posted by plnelson

Do you have any basis for this opinion? Anyway, what kind of "personal service" do we need? We just need everything to WORK, day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out.

I did a search here and on Sitepoint and while I got lots of hits, almost none were about hosting. Verizon comes up a lot in discussions of T1 lines, 'net neutrality', wireless and text-messaging interfaces, switches, etc.

Even on the HostingJury website where they seem to have a review of every hosting service ever set up by some high-school junior on a junker-PC running a free distro of Linux in his mom's laundry room, they don't list them (or Akami or other big commercial companies). I was just talking to their sales people and they seem to have a big customer base, far bigger, I suspect, than many of the webhosts listed on these review sites. Their datacenters are also multi-site, which reduces the risk of extended outages due to hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.

I do know from talking a little with them that they run some mutant Linux/Windows hybrid environment that imposes some strange limitations like no code-behind in .Net apps and possibly other weirdness. So they may not be the host for me, but my POINT is that we never talk about these big corporate hosting companies here even though they may offer a better alternative for people seeking long-term, stable, reliable web hosting.

A LOT of us are getting fed up with how Mickey-Mouse most web-hosting companies are, and getting the cheapest deal is NOT our highest priority! Multi-datacenter hosting and a multi-$billion parent company sounds good to me, and I suspect Verizon isn't the only player in that game, but we never talk about the big guys here so don't know how to find and compare them.

Hmmm.... I don't think that Verizon actually hosts the sites themselves (rather outsources that to a company such as Hostopia) and just makes a percentage of the recurring revenue with the wholesale fees for your account being paid to the private-label reseller. I know for a fact that a few Canadian telco's do this as standard practice. In this case, I can't specifically comment for sure - but, I don't think that Verizon would be doing all of this in house.

Just my 0.02 cents.

Edit: It seems Verizon uses Hostopia too - http://whois.domaintools.com/mysuperpageshosting.com (Internet Names For Business = Hostopia's Anonymous Name).