JANUARY 2008 - FIBRESPEED
The first elements of the Fibrespeed network are already underway and being installed in North Wales by Geo. It is expected that services may be available as early as June/July 2008 with completion of the North Wales network estimated for the last quarter of 2008. Pricing and service specifications are still unavailable at this time but we hope to be able to deliver more information after meeting with WAG in February.
JANUARY 2008 - IFL2 Transit Manchester
We are now offering 3 months free transit at 5Mbit to customers within IFL2 Manchester.
MARCH 2007 - FIBRESPEED DEVELOPMENTS
Our recent meeting with the Welsh Assembly Government representatives
has proved to be very positive. 14 sites in North Wales will be connected to the Fibrespeed network between March and June 2008 giving businesses the opportunity to purchase a wide range of high speed services. Our offering will initially include 1:1 and 10:1 contended symmetric internet access at speeds of 10mbit upwards. Pricing will be finalised in July 2007 but we anticipate that starting prices for entry level business access will not exceed that of a traditional ADSL / 8mb max quality business broadband product.
FEBRUARY 2007 - LONDON TRANSIT LINKS
Our network has been expanded to include a dedicated fibre link to London Telehouse North.
JANUARY 2007 - MANCHESTER IFL2 TRANSIT DISCOUNTS
As a result of our network expansion program and new transit contracts coming into force our Manchester transit prices now start at only £15 per mbit. Full details are available from our IFL2 Transit page
FEBUARY 2006 - OVERSELLING HOSTING
Oversold hosting tends to happen when a hosting company sells a customer more resources than the average customer will ever need. Typically we see entry level hosting packages including 1Gb or 2Gb of disk space or 50Gb of data transfer per month. The competition within the hosting industry is fierce and so it is easy to see why companies will want to beat their competitor by offering 25% more space or bandwidth than their competitors for the same price of say $5 per month.
When an offer looks like it is too good to be true, it probably is. Consider for instance a recent promotion whereby a large US hosting company has offered customers 20Gb of storage with 1000Gb per month of data transfer for $8 per month. Stop and think about that offer for a moment. If you're thinking, "I'd love to purchase that" then sadly you're in for a shock. The small print indicates that each account has a measured number of CPU minutes per month. In reality it would be easy to load 20Gb of files onto the server and it may even be possible to have images and say video files downloaded at a rate of 1000Gb per month but in practice as soon as your web site starts using any form of php or perl scripting language you will find that the CPU limits kick in at very modest levels of data transfer.
As technology develops and the costs of transit, storage, collocation space and power have changed hosts have had to adapt to their cost environments and that means that offers are being made that would be unheard of 3 or 4 years ago. Disk storage costs has fallen while capacity has increased, CPU performance has increased while costs have fallen. Ultimately every resource is limited and now we are seeing collocation facilities around the UK running out of space.
The cost of power is increasing as is the cost of the floor space so there is now a growing trend towards hosting companies using low power CPU's in order to minimise power consumption and reduce the heat build up within their racks. Reducing heat and power equates to lower hosting costs and a longer life expectancy for the server hardware. Measuring the CPU time usage is going to become an increasing feature within the webhosting industry in 2006.
Sadly the biggest limitations for any hosting company and the one that is most expensive to increase is the staff for technical support. It will not be long before hosting companies have to consider managing their technical support resources more efficiently or even changing the way in which their customers can use those resources.
JANUARY 2006 - BUYING WEB HOSTING
Web hosting comes in many different flavors but essentially the first choice is do you need a Linux or Windows server. If your site consists of static content then either server type is suitable for you. If you want to develop an interactive site then knowing how Linux servers and Windows servers work and what services they support is important to the decision.
Moving on from the type of server that you'll look for you need to think about how big your site will grow, how many visitors will you get and will you need any special services such as ssl encryption, databases or even shell access as your site grows. In most cases traditional shared hosting is suitable but in some cases where the site carries out sensitive transactions or requires a high level or reliability it may be necessary to consider a dedicated server or even virtual private server.
As your site grows it is important to consider the ability for your web host to support that growth. Ask your host what will happen if your site exceeds the bandwidth limits or CPU resource limits of your chosen package. In most cases hosting companies will always have some small print that protects themselves and their customers from what they class as excessive use. It is important that you understand before you take out a hosting plan what the limitations are and which limits your site will reach sooner rather than later.
Finally the most important part of any hosting service relates to the service level guarantee, reliability and the support offered. It is easy to assume that larger companies provide better support but in many cases smaller companies provide a more personal one to one service which will often allow for problems to be resolved sooner than if you have to explain everything from the start as you get passed from person to person with larger companies.
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