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  1. #1

    Leaving A2B2 - any advice?

    Hi

    I moved from One and One (business hosting) to A2B2 about 2-3 weeks ago, mainly because I needed more bandwidth and connection speed for our new Flash site (1&1 was good but very slow).

    The speed at A2B2 is great (I have a £16/mth reseller package), but the service has been appalling. Out of three weeks with them, my IP has been blacklisted by various antispam services, meaning our business has been unable to reliably send email for the last 10 days. A2B2 have been ludicrously slow at addressing the issue.

    Further, their Web Stats system is archaic, and has been pretty much broken for the last 4 days.

    So, time to move on ...

    Can anyone recommend a really good and fast service, with sparsely poopulated servers who do a good reseller type service (ie. lots of bandwidth per user) preferably with UK based servers to ensure maximum speeds. Decent webstats and reliable service a big bonus. I don't mind paying a bit more - just need a service which is good, very fast and reliable, and does not require me to be overly web-literate (meaning VPS etc. and unmanaged services are out).

    Many thanks for any advice.

    Jules

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    6,616
    I'm sorry you are not happy but fixing a cPanel bug and getting removed from blacklists isn't something that can be done in 2 minutes. Its a long, slow process. Anyway taking as you wish to take things public I will be issuing you a full refund for your time with us and good luck with your new host
    Russ Foster - Industry Curmudgeon
    Freelance Sysadmin for Hire - email vaserv@gmail.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,431
    Do you just want a regular cPanel shared hosting account? If so, what sort of budget? Usually by just googleing and not going for the cheapest will be a good bet.

    You're not going to get a sparsely populated server if you go down the shared route, but what you can get if you go with the better providers is a none-overloaded server (which is actually the better way to be, as it ensures they remain profitable so that your site stays online)

    and, I've spoken with Rus from a2b2 quite a lot and he's always seemed helpful and blacklisting can take months to get sorted - especially if they're reused IPs and the previous occupants were spammers

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    852
    Did you cause the IP to become BlackListed, if so you might want to look at what kind of Emails your sending out, however if the IP was BlackListed by another User then thats a different story.
    ZXPlay
    Premium Virtual Private Servers | Dedicated Media Streaming Servers
    Dedicated Resources | EU Based
    www.zxplay.co.uk

  5. #5
    Hi Rus et. al.

    My 'taking it public' was primarily to get advice on finding a good and reliable replacement hosting service - that's all I'm interested in. I sympathize with the issues you've had with blacklisting and Cpanel problems, and understand they are not easy to resolve. I hope you understand, that having exchanged what must be over a hundred support tickets in the last few days alone, with no clear sign of a definitive resolution on either blacklisting or web stats, one has to take a view on the best way forward.

    Unfortunately, I am pretty much web-illiterate, just need a service that is realiable, enables me to host my sites, send email and keep on top of my stats, and during my limited time with A2B2 this has often not been possible. To be honest, I would far rather stay with your company than move on - it took me days to arrange my move from 1&1 and I'd rather avoid going through it all again, plus the connection speeds and server performance I've seen have been great.

    ZX-Ashley - no I didn't cause the blacklisting (AFAIK) so I guess it was some previous client who was spamming, and has screwed things up for everybody else.

    CrystalVPS - the A2B2 Reseller service is the kind of thing I am looking for. It is basically shared hosting, but if I understand correctly, charges a higher rate in order to enable them to populate servers with fewer users, ensuring better bandwidth/performance and a bit more space. I need around 4GB of space and around 200GB of monthly traffic, and a good fast connection, so that clients visiting my site don't have to sit around waiting for Flash movies to load (which was the problem with 1&1). And I Second your comments about Rus - this is nothing personal, and when I've spoken to him, he's generally been helpful ... apart from refusing to deal with tech support issues by phone ;-)

    Thanks again for your help and feedback

    Jules

  6. #6
    (1&1 was good but very slow)
    You mean they are slow in general? or specially in your flash site?

  7. #7
    Whilst my site was hosted at 1&1 I got about 100KB/s connection speeds.

    At A2B2 I get pretty much the full bandwidth of my connection speed.

    Jules

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    568
    If you can't find one with UK servers you may want to look for ones in NY, IL, VA or various other states on the east coast. You can still get pretty good ping times to the UK as long as the provider is offering up a low latency network.

    For the hosts in those states that are reliable, I'm not too sure, maybe someone else can offer up some suggestions.
    eLief - Where your business matters.
    cPanel Hosting - Reseller Hosting - VPS - Dedicated Servers - Magento Specialists
    Celebrating over 4 years of providing quality hosting.
    cPanel/WHM - LiteSpeed - CloudFlare - R1Soft Backups - 15k Cheetah's - 24x7 Support eLief.com

  9. #9
    If you take a good look you'll find several GOOD QUALITY hosts on WHT that can be of service to you.
    Peter Marek
    https://www.UltraQuantix.com
    Fast - Reliable - Affordable - Shared Hosting - VPS - Website & Server Monitoring
    Web Hosting Done Right !

  10. #10
    Many thanks for the advice guys.

    The East Coast option sounds very sensible, although in an ideal world I would probably feel more comfortable from a support perspective with a UK host. I'll definitely bear it in mind though.

    I sense a slight reluctance to make specific recommendations - and wonder if there's any particular reason for this. I realize a lot of web hosts participate here, but any actual recommendations would be hugely appreciated.

    In case it helps - I'm prepared to spend up to £20-£25/mth ($40-$50), need around 4GB of space, and around 200GB/mth of bandwidth. Main priority is a really fast connection, because our principal site is fairly bandwidth intensive. Other things that are important to me are accurate real-time web stats, and a service which is more geared-up for end users with fairly limited knowledge of domain adminsitration, rather than for real techs who can handle all the web management themselves - I'm a composer, not a web administrator.

    Thanks again for all the help.

    Jules

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    568
    Whats your CPU usage look like? For that price i'm sure you can find a pretty decent VPS that is managed.

    Edit: nevermind, just saw that you are looking for a reseller account - I know Innohosting is a UK based reseller company so you might want to give them a shout
    eLief - Where your business matters.
    cPanel Hosting - Reseller Hosting - VPS - Dedicated Servers - Magento Specialists
    Celebrating over 4 years of providing quality hosting.
    cPanel/WHM - LiteSpeed - CloudFlare - R1Soft Backups - 15k Cheetah's - 24x7 Support eLief.com

  12. #12
    Hi Rich

    I don't have anything against a VPS service, I was just under the impression that it would be more work and a little more complex to set up.

    My CPU load is probably extremely low. I host two primary sites and have a dozen or so email accounts - that's all. The sites move about 1200MB of data per day - mainly audio and video from my Flash showreel. To be honest, I'd be happy with shared hosting, I just need really good connection speeds and as little management input as possible, plus reliablity and real-time stats.

    I'll check out Innohosting in the meantime.

    Many thanks for your help.

    Jules

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Posts
    326
    You might also want to look at http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk
    Charles

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Merville BC
    Posts
    608
    I use Futurehosting and have a vps in Seattle. Its been a few months and have never had any problems with support or server performance. I noticed the other day they now have a uk offering - might want to check it out?
    Three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population

  15. #15
    Many thanks for the recommendations. I'm checking them all out....

    Jules

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    3,110
    If you want to stick to something in the UK I've heard a lot of good things about www.tsohost.co.uk although I have no personal experience with them.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Ferenginar
    Posts
    4,157
    clook.co.uk if you're looking for a UK based reseller web host.

  18. #18
    Morning, I was looking at various hosting options and upon others recommendations I went with A2B2. I find them very helpful and quick to answer emails and support calls

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